THE EFFECTS OF WILDLAND FIRE ON WATER QUALITY: SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR WATER QUALITY MANAGEMENT
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Wildland fires, especially wildfires, are growing in frequency, duration and extent, posing increased risks to developed landscapes and their water supplies. Communities frequently rely on water coming from wildlands for drinking water, recreation and support of downstream ecosystems. Further, wildland fires can impact developed landscapes and their water supplies directly by burning in the wildland-urban interface itself. Wildland fires can generate a host of physical and chemical stressors that present risks to water quality use and water program endpoints. However, relative to air quality, relatively less is known about these risks and especially those associated with wildland-urban-interface fires. We developed a conceptual model of the effects of wildland fire on water quality management goals in wildland and wildland-urban landscapes, including a wide range of assessment endpoints and modifying factors. We then conducted a review of existing information on these specific pathways, including the full range of water quality regulated pollutants. In this presentation, we describe our conceptual model, summarize primary observations gathered from the existing literature, and identify major gaps in existing knowledge to inform future research. Our work highlights many pollutants with presumed risks from fires but little data (e.g., metals, organic pollutants), as well as other pollutants with more data but less analysis informing risk (e.g., nutrients).