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{
    "pk": 62920,
    "title": "Recent Findings and Future Prospects for Water Quality Effects from Catastrophic Wildfires in California, USA",
    "subtitle": null,
    "abstract": "Global change affects the forests and wildlands of California through rising temperatures, earlier snowmelt, more rain and less snow, greater vapor-pressure deficits, and forest dieback, resulting in increased frequency, size, and severity of wildfires. California has experienced its eight largest wildfires since 1932 in the period from 2018 to 2024. The largest fire to date (August Complex Fire) occurred in 2020—a year in which 1.7 million ha or 4% of California’s land area burned—and burned 418,000 ha. These mega-fires (>10,000 ha) can severely affect water quality and aquatic ecosystems. Water-quality variables affected by wildfire include temperature, sediment load, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, pH, redox potential, soluble and particulate organic carbon, nutrients, metals, natural- and human-produced organic contaminants, and primary/secondary producers. Wildfire and water interact at watershed scales, with water-quality impairments responding linearly with the percentage of the watershed area burned, and responding exponentially as burn severity increases. Vegetation recovery is key to the duration of water-quality effects, and short-term, post-fire weather dictates actual water-related effects. Urban areas are hot spots for the production and transport of water pollutants such as sediments, heavy metals, mercury, nutrients, and toxic organic compounds. Water-treatability challenges after wildfire include short-term odor and taste, increased sediment and turbidity, and increased total and dissolved organic matter. Implications for water quality from catastrophic wildfire on downstream reservoirs are important research needs because ~80% of California’s water supply passes through reservoirs before use. Notably, there is a crucial need for development and assessment of post-fire, land-management practices to mitigate adverse water-quality effects. Finally, continuous measurements of water quality are critical to document the severity and duration of episodic pulses of wildfire-sensitive constituents that are mobilized and transported to aquatic ecosystems after catastrophic mega-fires.",
    "language": "en",
    "license": {
        "name": "Creative Commons Attribution 4.0",
        "short_name": "CC BY 4.0",
        "text": "Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.\n\nNo additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.",
        "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0"
    },
    "keywords": [
        {
            "word": "mega fires, water quality  hydrology, streams, reservoirs, warming climate, wildfire recovery, continuous monitoring, extreme events"
        }
    ],
    "section": "The State of Bay-Delta Science 2025, Part 2",
    "is_remote": true,
    "remote_url": "https://escholarship.org/uc/item/157618mx",
    "frozenauthors": [
        {
            "first_name": "Clifford",
            "middle_name": "N.",
            "last_name": "Dahm",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "University of New Mexico\nAlbuqueruqe, NM 87131 USA",
            "department": ""
        },
        {
            "first_name": "Denise",
            "middle_name": "D.",
            "last_name": "Colombano",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "Delta Stewardship Council, Delta Science Program\nSacramento, CA 95814 USA",
            "department": ""
        },
        {
            "first_name": "Randy",
            "middle_name": "A.",
            "last_name": "Dahlgren",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "University of California—Davis\nDavis, CA 95616 USA",
            "department": ""
        }
    ],
    "date_submitted": "2025-08-24T03:10:57Z",
    "date_accepted": "2025-08-24T03:10:57Z",
    "date_published": "2025-08-28T07:00:00Z",
    "render_galley": null,
    "galleys": [
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            "label": "",
            "type": "pdf",
            "path": "https://journalpub.escholarship.org/jmie_sfews/article/62920/galley/48606/download/"
        }
    ]
}