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Partner Webinar: What Determines Water-Quality Response after Wildfire?

September 10, 2024 @ 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

USGS Webinar: Fire and Water: What determines water-quality response after wildfire?

Host: US Geological Survey

Date: Tuesday, September 10th at 4-5 pm ET

Speaker:  Sheila Murphy, Research Hydrologist, USGS Water Resources Mission Area

Summary: Wildfires can increase the risk of flooding, erosion, and degraded water quality, which can damage infrastructure, increase treatment costs for drinking water providers, and impair stream ecosystems. However, the reported nature and extent of water-quality effects after wildfire have varied widely, from massive increases in the amount of sediment, nutrients, and metals delivered to downstream waters to no noticeable change. Given the wide range of potential post-wildfire effects on water supplies, water providers and land managers need accurate guidance on what to expect in their watersheds to enable plans for minimizing impacts on water supplies. This presentation will describe selected USGS work linking post-wildfire water-quality response to climate, land cover, geology, catchment hydrology, and other factors. Given the predicted ongoing risk of wildfire to water supplies, it is imperative to develop capacity to predict, monitor, and mitigate wildfire effects on our water resources.

Join the webinar here (Microsoft Teams).

The USGS Fueling Discovery with USGS Wildland Fire Sciences series is open to the public! Please feel free to forward to those who may be interested.