WILDFIRES, CLIMATE, AND EQUITY: TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT AND CONSERVATION

Author

Mark Regier Kreider

Year of Award

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Name

Forest and Conservation Science

Department or School/College

W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation

Committee Chair

Andrew J. Larson

Commitee Members

William Rice, Philip Higuera, Nadia White, Sean Parks

Keywords

climate change, conservation, fire, parks access, post-fire regeneration, suppression

Abstract

Forest and conservation sciences are both fields that inherently combine land and people, concerning topics such as the wildfire crisis, impacts of human-caused climate change on ecosystem functioning, and inequity of access to outdoor spaces. The research and science communication in this PhD dissertation explore these issues, integrating the biophysical and social sciences to promote understanding, stewardship, and conservation of human-forest systems. Chapter 1 assesses how humans shape patterns of fire through fire suppression, inadvertently ensuring that fires occur under the most severe conditions and effectively selecting for high-severity fire occurrences. Chapter 2 uses a wilderness area with a fire regime minimally affected by full fire suppression to study how initial post-fire climate impacts long-term forest development. Chapters 3 and 4 explore an important service that forests provide to human society—the opportunity for recreation and the many health benefits that come from access to outdoor spaces. Chapter 3 employs survey and demographic data to create a spatially continuous, high-resolution dataset of walking and driving access to public parks for the contiguous U.S. and then identifies areas of inequitable access. Chapter 4 builds on this dataset by combining it with ecological conservation value data to yield an integrated map of social-ecological conservation for the contiguous U.S., showing how conservation can achieve ecological values while helping to address injustices in outdoor access. Finally, an appendix highlights examples of my science communication work from the last three years. This dissertation advances our understanding of the impact of climate and fire on forest ecosystems, the interactions between humans and wildfires, and how to ensure equitable access to outdoor spaces.

Recommended Citation

Kreider, Mark Regier, "WILDFIRES, CLIMATE, AND EQUITY: TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT AND CONSERVATION" (2024). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 12269.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/12269