Nicholas Coops and Lori Daniels Lecture - Wall Catalyst Program
Channel: UBC Emeritus College
Date: 18/11/2022

3:34 Nicholas Coops, Professor, Faculty of Forestry (UBC) and a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in remote sensing
29:50 Lori Daniels, Professor, Faculty of Forestry (UBC) Forest and Conservation Sciences

"Digital Forested ecosystems
New sensors, and data for addressing climate change in Canadian Forests"

Nicholas Coops, Professor, Faculty of Forestry (UBC) and a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in remote sensing

Nicholas is the head of the Integrated Remote Sensing Studio (IRSS) within the Faculty of Forestry at UBC, a research lab at UBC investigating and demonstrating applications of remote sensing data to environmental and forest production issues. He has published over 520 peer-reviewed journal papers and was the editor - in - chief of the Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing for a decade. Nicholas was awarded a Killam research scholarship, the Carl Pulfrich Award sponsored by Leica, and the silver and gold medals by the Canadian Remote Sensing Society (CRSS) Award, the highest award for mid-career and senior scholars in remote sensing in Canada. In 2020 Nicholas was a joint winner of the Marcus Wallenberg Prize (known as the Nobel prize in Forestry) for his research into satellite analysis and numerical modelling of tree and forest growth.

"Wildfires in British Columbia: Causes, Consequences and Coexistence"

Lori Daniels, Professor, Faculty of Forestry (UBC) Forest and Conservation Sciences

"My research strives to advance fundamental scientific knowledge on forest dynamics, which is imperative for conserving and managing contemporary forests and adapting to global environmental change. My research characterizes how natural disturbances, humans and climate interact to drive temperate forest dynamics and resilience. It has produced three key contributions:

(1) My international collaborations demonstrate widespread tree mortality in North and South America, disentangling the relative impacts of drought, insects and pathogens.

(2) Many forests in the Canadian Cordillera are increasingly susceptible to wildfire due to complex interactions among fire suppression, land-use and climatic change.

(3) My novel forest reconstructions include tree-ring methods adapted to address aboriginal cultural uses and traditional management, largely overlooked by forest managers.

My enduring partnerships with local to national governments, environmental organizations, forest management companies, community forests, and First Nations have helped me translate these scientific advances to operational conservation, restoration and management policies and practices."

Wildfire is an essential process in forest ecosystems, but can be incredibly destructive in the wildland-urban interface, as we experienced again during the 2021 fire season. Wildfire is driven by climate, weather and fuels that vary among ecosystems and through time. Combined, land-use change, fire exclusion and global warming have made many forests highly susceptible to intense fires that are difficult to control and spread to large sizes. Revolutionizing forest and fire management will improve ecosystem resilience to climate change, but we will not stop future fires from burning. Successful adaptation must also include individuals and communities learning how to coexist with wildfire.