forest restoration Projects within the santa fe watershed

We live in a dynamic environment, constantly changing in response to the climate, time of year, and changing of the seasons. In response, the work we do to protect and increase the resiliency of the watershed must also be flexible and open to continual growth. The U.S. Forest Service owns and cares for the majority of the forested land in the watershed; they work with the Coalition and other partners to design and implement landscape-scale treatments with the goal of protecting the land and serving the community.

While land management planning is ongoing, one notable project which will aim to treat portions of the watershed is the Santa Fe Mountains Landscape Resiliency Project. An Environmental Analysis has been completed and finalized planning, response to public scoping, and a final decision are expected in early 2022. The project consists of approximately 50,000 acres of NFS lands whose purpose is to improve the ecosystem resilience of a priority landscape to future disturbances by restoring forest structure and composition and reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfire. Resilience is the “ability of a social or ecological system to absorb disturbance while retaining the same basic structure and ways of functioning, the capacity for self-organization, and the capacity to adapt to stress and change” (FSM 2020.5).

The City of Santa Fe Water Division has partnered with the Santa Fe National Forest in a Vegetation Management Costshare Collection Agreement. Although on-the-ground treatments have been on a two-year hiatus due to the Mexican Spotted Owl Injunction and pandemic-related constraints, this agreement ensures that the municipality and the federal agency will work together in the near future to fund, plan, and implement vegetation management projects.

In keeping with their 10-year Forest Plan, the U.S. Forest Service plans to implement several prescribed burns in the upper and lower watershed in the coming year. Autumn 2021 will see a broadcast burn implemented above Nichols Reservoir, consuming excess fuel (duff, twigs, branches, and logs, as well as the thick understory of brush) and raising the lower canopy of live trees so that there is a greater distance between the ground and their lowest branches. This change in forest arrangement discourages “ladder fuels”, therefore helping to keep wildfires manageable by preventing them from climbing into the forest canopy where they grow in size and intensity. The autumn burn is a follow-up treatment which will build on the success of a mechanical thinning treatment in the same area several years ago. Staggering these treatments makes burning safer and more effective.

More prescribed burns are planned for Spring 2022 around the Six Springs headwaters. These targeted treatments protect the vigor and health of the watershed, and the quality of surface water coming out of it, by reducing fuel loading, making the watershed more resilient to drought and potential wildfire, and encouraging nutrient cycling in the soil and vegetation.

The Water Division has partnered with researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey (U.S.G.S.) to model the potential for debris flows and flooding following a wildfire in the watershed. This research builds on an existing knowledge base and will aim to improve modeling efforts and the accuracy of data which informs those models. The results will be compiled in a report, Investigating Post-Fire Debris Flows in the Santa Fe Watershed, and will help city planners and land managers understand, plan for, and mitigate the effects of post-fire flooding. Climate science and climate modeling has shown that the likelihood of extreme precipitation events which could trigger watershed flooding, with or without wildfire, will continue to increase in the coming decades as a result of a changing climatic conditions. In addition, heat produced in extreme wildfires can actually make post-fire flooding more likely; these heat islands prompt or exacerbate precipitation events immediately following the fire by influencing weather patterns and encouraging cloud buildup and the formation of thunderheads. In response to these realities, studying and being aware of the watershed’s propensity to flooding ensures that city and land planners have the tools to make a plan and react to these precipitation events.

Click below to learn all about ongoing projects in the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed.

Learn more about the risks facing the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed, including the municipal watershed, and how treatments are designed to reduce this risk and protect values at risk by clicking below.