Date of Award:

12-2022

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Wildland Resources

Committee Chair(s)

Eric T. Thacker

Committee

Eric T. Thacker

Committee

Thomas A. Monaco

Committee

Kari E. Veblen

Abstract

After fires occur in western rangelands, land management agencies commonly perform vegetation treatments and reseeding projects. The West Box Elder Coordinated Resource Management Group expressed concern regarding the difficult process of determining outcomes from the many post-fire revegetation projects undertaken on rangeland of Box Elder County, Utah. This research attempted to compile and clarify the fire and treatment history of the county and produce an assessment of the outcomes from each unique post-fire treatment in West Box Elder County. Also produced was a database of post-fire revegetation outcomes in published literature.

Unique treatment polygons were identified and then subset according to the resistance/resilience ranking of the ecosystem where they were found. To assess treatment outcomes, the Rangeland Analysis Platform was used to show trends in different types of vegetation from satellite imagery. Formal effect size analyses were performed with the outputs of the Rangeland Analysis Platform. Effect size analyses measures the strength between to variables, in this case I measured what vegetation looked like before and after the treatments.

Mild successes in perennial establishment occurred across treatment types. Annual cover increased or was more closely dependent on pretreatment levels than treatment type. My results also indicate that time to recovery after fire may be longer than 15-years, especially when evaluating shrub response to post-fire treatments. My analysis reemphasized that, annual, perennial, and shrub responses to treatments are highly variable and depend on many factors besides treatment method and R&R classification alone.

A database of publications outlining post-fire revegetation outcomes was also compiled. This database was designed to help managers refamiliarize with and discover new literature regarding post-fire restoration techniques and outcomes. Literature focusing on specific outcomes of post-fire revegetation across rangelands of the great basin were assembled into this database. Categories of key words were assembled and used to describe each study and help facilitate specific managers queries.

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