The Forest Health Research Program is a grant program coordinated by CAL FIRE’s Fire and Resource Assessment Program for implementing the California Forest Carbon Plan.
Donor Name: California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE)
State: California
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 04/27/2023
Size of the Grant: $500,000
Grant Duration: 4 years
Details:
The mission of the Research Program is:
- to identify and prioritize research topics in forest health and wildland fire science critical to the State of California,
- to fund sound scientific studies that support landowners, resource agencies, and fire management organizations within the state,
- to ensure scientific information generated from the program is made available to support decision making and policy, and
- to further the goals of the Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan, California Forest Carbon Plan, the California Natural and Working Lands Implementation Plan, CCI, and AB 32 Global Warming Solutions Act.
Priorities
Research projects should be focused on and relevant to California ecosystems and their management.
- Disturbance, recovery, and strategies for various types of landowners to increase forest resilience in an altered future climate. Includes, but is not limited to:
- post-wildfire recovery, restoration, regeneration, and reforestation strategies, including those supporting tribal land management and incorporation of traditional ecological knowledge;
- improved prediction of threats such as drought and wildfire and associated impacts to forest structure and function;
- climate adaptation and mitigation strategies that will promote healthy, resilient forests; vulnerability of forests and other vegetation to high severity wildfire or type conversion;
- large high severity patch impacts to and from wildlife;
- interactions of drought and wildfire;
- impacts related to invasive species; and
- water balance and geomorphic processes changed by high severity fire or other disturbances.
- Implementation, effectiveness, impacts, and tradeoffs of current and alternative management strategies to reduce unwanted wildfire impacts, increase carbon storage, sustain and promote biodiversity, improve water and air quality, and provide regional economic benefits. Includes, but is not limited to:
- implications of significantly increased pace and scale of prescribed fire and other forest health treatments;
- scale of treatment or restoration needed to achieve whole watershed resilience to severe disturbances; and
- optimal mix and timing of wildfire mitigation, suppression, and management mechanisms to reduce losses of life, property, natural resources, and sensitive species, while minimizing costs and maximizing beneficial effects of fire.
- Contemporary range of variation and trends in fire regimes, forest conditions and distributions in California ecosystems (particularly those less well studied) in relation to historical or pre-European settlement conditions or processes. Includes, but is not limited to:
- quantification of current and past indigenous land use and management practices;
- historical and paleo-ecological investigations;
- changes in modern-era disturbance regimes;
- long-term trends in ecosystem functions and resources;
- changes in ecosystem carbon pools and wildfire-related emissions;
- climate-induced species range shifts;
- range of variation in ecosystem water balances and sediment budgets; and
- development of enhanced methods for and systematic collection of ecosystem monitoring data.
- Forest products and utilization of forest residues related to fuel reduction and forest health treatments. Includes but is not limited to:
- emerging approaches, technologies, and harvested wood products;
- methods and barriers (including workforce limitations) to obtain greater production, utilization and supply stability, while not exceeding sustainable harvest levels;
- impacts and of products and utilization on greenhouse gas emissions or on ecosystem services;
- impacts on local, regional, and state economies; and
- substitution options for imported wood products from local products produced from forest restoration activities.
- Human dimensions, socio-economic considerations, and environmental justice issues related to forest health and wildfire management. Includes but is not limited to:
- utilization of traditional ecological knowledge in conjunction with Western science;
- integrating private and community land management actions into scientific process and larger management strategies;
- public perceptions of wildfire risk and willingness to take or support mitigating action;
- barriers to mitigating actions;
- total cost of uncontrolled wildfire;
- identification of communities and populations vulnerable to wildfire impacts;
- equity in resilience to and recovery from fire and other disturbances;
- interactions of public health, psychology, and forest health and management; and
- impacts of wildfire and prescribed fire on public health.
- Improved prediction of wildland fire spread, behavior, severity, patch size, and potential impacts, particularly under extreme weather conditions and/or within the wildland-urban interface. Includes but is not limited to:
- improved prediction of fire weather and near-term fire danger;
- atmospheric coupling in wildfire models;
- ember generation, lofting, transport and likelihood of structure ignition;
- improved measurement of fuels;
- identification and evaluation of wildfire safety zones for firefighting, evacuation, or shelter in place areas; and
- expected wildfire dynamics under predicted future climate conditions.
- Leveraging U.S. Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data to inform future forest management. Includes but is not limited to:
- validating modeled results;
- validating intended outcomes from forest management;
- developing feedbacks to inform adaptive management;
- operationalizing small area estimation;
- and/or integrating FIA with remote sensing data
Funding Information
- Wildfire and Forest Research (General): $500,000
- Demonstration State Forests Research: $500,000
- Graduate Student Research: $100,000
- Science Synthesis and Tool Development: $500,000
- Special Topics Research: $500,000
Project Period
Applicants may propose projects up to four years in length, with work starting no earlier than June 1, 2023.
Eligible Activities
- Original research may be based on empirical data (i.e., collection and analysis of field or remotely sensed data), model development or application, technology development or testing, or any combination thereof. Development and testing of new technologies are allowed but must be associated with formal scientific investigation and/or hypothesis testing typical of academic research and provide results appropriate for publication in peer reviewed scientific journals.
- Projects may physically manipulate resources (e.g. thinning, prescribed burning, etc.) in an experimental fashion, but any ground-disturbing activity must comply with all pertinent federal, state and local regulations, including CEQA and NEPA . While scientific rigor is paramount, research activities themselves must not significantly degrade ecosystem health, function or services over large areas. Applicants must incorporate reasonable and legally required measures to avoid adverse impacts to fish, wildlife, native plants, water, and other resources in project design and development. A California Registered Professional Forester or NASP-Certified Silviculturist must design and oversee any forest vegetation treatments and removal to be performed using grant funds.
- Scientific syntheses and tool development are allowed either as part of original research projects or as the sole or primary focus of the project. Proposals for scientific syntheses such as literature reviews should identify a clear question or set of questions related to the Research Program priority topics and be directly relevant to long-term forest and fire management strategies, planning and policy for CAL FIRE or other land management agencies. Topics or questions to be reviewed and synthesized should be ones of current importance that have not previously had a publicly available synthesis or literature review performed, or where there has been considerable scientific advancement on the topic since any prior published reviews. Proposed tool development must facilitate distribution and utilization of current scientific information, data or decision-making tools to landowners, land management agencies and the public
Eligibility Criteria
CAL FIRE will grant funds from the Research Program to public and other nonprofit universities and affiliated academic institutions, local agencies (e.g. counties and special districts), state agencies, federal agencies, Native American tribes, private forest landowners, and non-profit 501(c)(3) organizations (e.g. fire safe councils, and land trusts). To be eligible, organizations must be able to obtain a US Employer Identification Number (EIN) or Tax Identification Number (TIN).
For more information, visit CAL FIRE.
