Abstracts for Oral Presentations and Posters

Also available online at http://www.geographyua.org/apcg09/abstracts2010.pdf

Oral Presentation Abstracts

John T. Abatzoglou, jabatzoglou@uidaho.edu, University of Idaho; Timothy J. Brown, tim.brown@dri.edu, Desert Research Institute; and Crystal A. Kolden, ckolden@uidaho.edu, University of Idaho. The Confluence of Weather and Climate Stressors Contributing to the Big Burn of 1910. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the confluence of weather and climate stressors contributed to the Big Burn and other forest fires across the Idaho panhandle and western Montana during the summer of 1910. A novel approach to reconstruct meteorological conditions is used to quantitatively examine the respective influence of these stressors for the 1910 fires through commonly used metrics employed in the National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS) and drought indices. Results suggest that despite a significant moisture stress, antecedent climatological conditions leading up to the fires of 1910 were not a unique event, as numerous subsequent summers have experienced more pronounced drought stress. An exceptionally strong and persistent warm spell in March and little precipitation during the spring of 1910 set the stage for an accelerated drying of 1,000-hr fuels and above normal Energy Release Component (ERC) values commencing in early June and persisting through the end of August. A reconstruction of synoptic conditions during the Big Burn on August 20–22 show the passage of a vigorous cold front across the Canadian Rockies that produced sustained strong winds and low relative humidity over the burn area contributing to rapid fire growth over a seventy-two-hour period. Although fire danger indices (e.g., ERC) during 1910 were not as high as other regionally synchronous fire years in the Northern Rockies, synoptic conditions coincident to the Big Burn allowed for the BI and Fosberg index to reach values only exceeded a few times in the 114-year record.

Ruth Askevold, ruthsfei.org, San Francisco Estuary Institute. Using Historical Ecology to Reimagine Contemporary Landscapes: Examples from Alameda Creek. California's landscape has been highly modified during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and will continue to face challenges in the future from global warming and increased population growth. We often have little information about how historical habitats functioned, but by synthesizing diverse historical data, historical ecology can fill this information gap. Understanding how the landscape functioned historically is often viewed as interesting but irrelevant to solving complex problems in light of climate change and urban development. This presentation discusses ways in which understanding the functionality of historical systems can help shape a more resilient future landscape. Examples from the Alameda Creek watershed adjacent to the San Francisco Bay provide a basis for this discussion, and show that developing strategies based on historical systems can provide a range of useful information for innovative, ecologically based environmental management.

Kate Berry, kberry@unr.edu, University of Nevada. Tribal Water Quality Governance. This paper examines some of the major issues that contemporary American Indian tribal governments face concerning water quality governance. It begins with the recognition that tribes are different from all other ethnic and racial groups, and this affects tribal governance of water. Tribes have a unique political (and legal) relationship with the federal government; they are sovereign within a framework of other sovereigns, which often compete with one another. I'll begin with a discussion of the dimensions of sovereignty as it relates to the tribes, states, and the federal government. The discussion then turns to one of the major water challenges that tribes face, water quality governance.

Gregory S. Bohr, gbohr@calpoly.edu, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Trends in Climatic Factors Influencing Wine-Grape Production in California. The production of wine grapes is a major part of the California agricultural sector, which accounts for the majority of U.S. wine production. High-quality wine is produced throughout the state, with key centers of production in the Bay Area (Napa and Sonoma) as well as on the central coast. Grape quality (and thus the quality of the resulting wine) is influenced by a multitude of geophysical factors, including atmospheric conditions throughout the year. Changes in regional climate are likely to produce changes in...