Project Implementation
- | Watershed Restoration |
- | Forest Restoration |
- | Community Protection |
Why do our watersheds need restoration?
Healthy watersheds improve the quality and availability of water for the habitats within them and for the residents downstream. Unfortunately, watershed degradation is widespread across the northern Sierra. Sierra Institute works to empower local and regional partners to complete watershed restoration by prioritizing, designing, implementing, and monitoring various types of watershed restoration projects in headwater streams.
How do Sierra Institute and partners complete watershed restoration?
Roads and Stream Crossings
Forest roads and stream crossings are frequent sources of excessive sedimentation and often create barriers to the movement of fish and other species. We are leading efforts to plan, design, and implement improvements along roads and stream crossings to improve watershed health.
Restoring Stream, Meadow, and Floodplain Function
Meadow, floodplain, and streamside habitat is among some of the most biodiverse and productive in all of the Sierra Nevada. We lead efforts throughout the region to reconnect streams and meadows to their historic floodplains and to restore critical ecological processes in the streamside zone.
Project Design and Permitting
We build regional capacity for watershed restoration by working with local, state, and federal agencies to design and permit watershed restoration projects.
Monitoring
We work to quantify sources of watershed degradation across the landscape as well as the effects of restoration work on water quality and water availability.
Why do our forests need restoration?
A history of fire suppression and the elimination of indigenous burning practices has led to forests overstocked with trees. A recent study reported that average tree density in 2011 was 6-7 times what it was in 1911, and average tree size was reduced by 50%. In addition to increasing risk of high-severity wildfire, overstocked stands increase tree competition for space, light, water, and nutrients, leaving them more vulnerable to stressors like drought, fire, and pests.
How do Sierra Institute and Partners implement forest restoration?
Increasing Forest Resilience
We are thinning overstocked forest stands to promote the development of resilient, healthy, complex forests.
Reintroducing Fire
We are preparing the landscape for planned and unplanned fire by removing woody material at the surface, ladder, and canopy levels of forests, and applying prescribed fire to the fire-adapted landscape.
Protecting Critical Habitat
We are maintaining and enhancing habitat connectivity to allow wildlife to respond to changing climatic conditions. This includes restoring fire-impacted landscapes to promote biodiversity and preserving mature forest stands for at-risk species such as the California spotted owl.
How does our work protect local communities?
Wildland Urban Interface (WUI)
A WUI is an area where human habitation is mixed with areas of flammable wildland vegetation. Sierra Institute and partners such as federal agencies and local firewise councils work with WUI communities to advance work that reduces the risk of severe fire effects to communities through education, targeted fuels reduction and forest thinning, and infrastructure development.
Education and Collaboration
Through forums such as the South Lassen Watersheds Group, Sierra Institute provides a platform for discussing environmental stewardship and community protection. By bringing together interested parties, we educate and empower community members to prepare for planned and unplanned fires.
Hazardous Fuels Reduction
Forest restoration projects include reducing surface, ladder, and canopy fuels that would otherwise feed wildfires. This reduces the risk of wildfires affecting our communities and prepares the landscape for safe application of prescribed and managed fire, and cultural burning. Fuel reduction makes communities more defensible against fire by improving accessibility and safety for emergency personnel and community members.