The Southern California Ecosystem Services Assessment quantifies and maps ecosystem services across 35,158 km², and evaluates the effects of wildfire and climate change on the provision of these services. Specifically our research focuses on:

• Estimating water runoff, groundwater recharge, carbon storage,  sediment erosion regulation, recreation and biodiversity services
• Estimating the impacts of wildfire and climate change on ecosystem services
• Investigating the effects of restoration on ecosystem services
• Mapping aboveground live biomass across climatic and environmental gradients
• Estimating pre- and post-fire changes in chaparral carbon pools
• Modeling the distribution of chaparral species with different life history traits (resprouter, seeder, and facultative seeder species)
• Conducting a monetary and economic valuation of water, sediment erosion, carbon storage and recreation

Our research centers on topics of immediate relevance to resource managers in southern California, with a specific focus on shrubland ecosystems.

• Prioritizing areas for post-fire restoration
  
• Measuring the recovery of ecosystem services after restoration
• Estimating recovery of biomass with time since fire
• Comparing the provision of ecosystem services between intact, high quality chaparral and degraded chaparral
• Developing ecological landscape units based on 9 environmental and climatic variables

• Developing landscape facets based on vegetation, aspect and topographic position

• Developing pole-camera technique for fieldwork for acquiring high resolution imagery in fieldwork

Research Grants

• California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire): ’Measuring wildfire impacts and post-fire recovery of shrubland biomass under different climate conditions’

• National Fish and Wildlife Foundation: ‘Assessing the Restoration of Ecosystem Services in Post-Fire Chaparral Landscapes’

• National Fish and Wildlife Foundation: ‘Developing a Decision Support Tool for Post-fire Restoration’

• USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Regional Office: ‘Ecosystem services assessment of the Santa Clara River Watershed’

• California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire): ‘Impacts of Wildfire and Climate on Ecosystem Services in Southern California'

• USDA Western Wildlands Environmental Threats Assessment Center: technical assistance grant

• USDA Forest Service technical assistance grant from USFS Geospatial Technology and Applications Center (GTAC): for developing web mapping tool

• California Landscape Conservation Cooperative: ‘Assessing the impacts of future climates and fire on hydrologic regimes in the Mediterranean-type ecosystems of southern California’