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Strengthening Wildland Fire Science and Scientific Collaboration through New Data Management Platform3 min read

by Lauren Core on June 13, 2022

Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division

A prescribed fire, such as the one shown above, is one type of wildland fire. Prescribed fires are used to reduce the buildup of materials that fuel wildfires. Photo: USDA Forest Service

 

Wildfires are increasing in severity and frequency worldwide. A new report called Spreading like Wildfire: The Rising Threat of Extraordinary Landscape Fires indicates that wildfires are responsible for significant economic, environmental, and sociopolitical damage (UNEP, GRID-Arendal, 2021). They also contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions – thereby further fueling climate change. 

Researchers need to store, manage, and harmonize relevant data to better understand and predict fire hazard and risk, as well as fire behavior. 

Enabling Wildland Fire Science Initiative (WFSI) Data Integration Through a Managed Data Platform is a new Department of Defense (DoD) funded project that aims to support research related to wildland fires, which encompass both wildfires and prescribed fire. Led by researchers and engineers within the Computing Science Area’s Scientific Data Division (SDD) and Earth and Environmental Sciences Area (EESA), the platform will enable a collaborative data repository with advanced publication and search features, and will encourage uniform metadata and data standards, collaboration among scientists, and long-term data archiving. More generally it will support the concept of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) data. 

Shreyas Cholia, Lead Principal Investigator (PI) of the project, said, “The new data platform is crucial for enabling a common and consistent approach to managing the data lifecycle across the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) WFSI projects. Currently, these projects face barriers due to a lack of metadata/data standards and a common platform to share data. There is a strong need to share data across projects and enable greater collaboration,” says Cholia.

The platform is a timely and relevant contribution to the science surrounding wildland fires, a term that encompasses both wildfires and prescribed fire –an essential land management tool used to reduce the buildup of materials that fuel wildfires, such as dead leaves and fallen pine needles, and promotes forest resilience. Andrew Hudak, a USDA research forester who is collaborating on the project, says that fire scientists participating in WFSI are collecting data regarding fuel, fire behavior, and smoke measurements before, during, and after prescribed fires, in order to improve models used by managers to inform decision making on all wildland fires, including undesirable wildfires. With this data obtained across multiple scales, scientists can better understand the intensity and development of fires while they are burning, and help to assess wildland fire effects and impacts. 

Berkeley Lab brings together an interdisciplinary team to tackle these challenges, including Robinson Negron-Juarez, Staff  Scientist in EESA-Climate and Ecosystem Science Division, and Valerie Hendrix, Senior Software Engineer in the SDD. 

“A research publication usually represents the end of data analysis. Data management extends the life of a dataset, which can now, with curation, be used far beyond its original intent. Data management incentivizes collaboration among scientists to explore beyond their areas of expertise,” said Negron-Juarez. 

This newly funded project will build on DoE’s Earth and Environmental System Science Data for a Virtual Ecosystem (ESS-DIVE) project led by Berkeley Lab. The project falls within a new program domain for EESA, Earth Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data (EAID), which is focused on research that makes use of machine learning, data sciences, informatics, and data management to advance state-of-the-art Earth science observations, modeling, and theory. 

“The data management platform represents a wonderful opportunity to bring together approaches and expertise in both wildland fire science and data science to make real progress in understanding how wildland fires behave,” said Cholia. “Modelers will be able to look at different aspects of wildland fires, and to build knowledge collaboratively.” 

 

News & Events

Daniel Stolper Selected by DOE’s Early Career Research Program2 min read

June 22, 2022

Daniel Stolper is among five Berkeley Lab researchers to receive funding through the Department of Energy’s Early Career Research Program (ECRP), and is one of just 83 nationwide to be selected this year by the DOE for this prestigious award. Stolper is an EESA faculty scientist with a joint appointment at UC Berkeley, where he…

Wageningen Students Visit Ecology Department Team2 min read

On May 31, a delegation of students from Wageningen University & Research Center (WUR) Microbiology and Systems Biology Groups in the Netherlands came to visit EESA’s Ecology department. WUR is a highly esteemed world-class Dutch university that trains specialists in a variety of life sciences disciplines. WUR’s research and teaching activities range from sustainable agriculture…

Bhavna Arora Describes Agricultural Managed Aquifer Recharge5 min read

June 7, 2022

Managed Aquifer Recharge is a water management strategy used to store excess surface water underground and thereby replenish groundwater basins when and where possible. This strategy enables communities to use depleted groundwater basins as natural water storage to augment water supplies and prevent land subsidence. In coastal regions, MAR can be implemented to act as…

Robinson Negron-Juarez to Receive Honorary Degree3 min read

May 26, 2022

EESA Staff Scientist Robinson Negron-Juarez will travel to Iquitos, Peru, in July to accept an Honoris Causa from the National University of the Peruvian Amazon (Universidad Nacional de la Amazonia Peruana, UNAP). Negron-Juarez joined EESA in 2013 and contributes to the NGEE-Tropics project led by EESA and to EESA’s wildfire Element. Through his research he…

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