Assessing the integrated ecohydrological changes in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park surrounding the 2016 fire season

Abstract:

In October to December of 2016, a series of wildfires swept through the Southern Appalachian Mountains, causing casualties and devastating infrastructure and natural resources. As extreme weather events and anthropogenic factors contributing to climate change constitute an increasing threat to human life and water resources, quantifying the complex ecohydrological dynamics of areas like the Great Smoky Mountains (GRSM) National Park is crucial for wildfire mitigation and risk assessment. The hydrologic responses of multiple watersheds in the GRSM are examined during a 5-year period (2015-2019) using a physically-based, fully-distributed hydrology model with dynamic vegetation at high spatiotemporal resolution before and after the 2016 fire season. The model is driven by atmospheric reanalysis and downscaled Stage IV quantitative precipitation estimates from the Integrated Precipitation and Hydrology Experiment (IPHEx). The temporal evolution of land-cover conditions is specified based on the temporal evolution of vegetation indices from remote-sensing data. Post-fire ecohydrological changes are examined with a focus on terrestrial water fluxes (streamflow and evapotranspiration), including extreme events, and gross primary productivity (GPP). Land monitoring data from multiple satellite platforms including AQUA, TERRA, Sentinel 2 and 3, OCO-2 and DSCOVR EPIC are used to support interpretive analysis of model simulations and develop quantitative understanding of the relationship(s) between hydroclimatic variability and ecosystem recovery surrounding wildfires in the GRSM.