Fuels Planning: Science Synthesis and

Integration

Environmental Consequences Fact Sheet: 12

Water Erosion Prediction Project

(WEPP) Fuel Management (FuMe) Tool

United States

Department

of Agriculture

Forest Service

Rocky Mountain

Research Station

Research Note

RMRS-RN-23-12-WWW

March 2005

Fuels planning: Science synthesis and integration, an interagency research/management

partnership to support the Ten-Year Fire Plan,

led by Russell T. Graham, RMRS, and Sarah M.

McCaffrey, NCRS.

Synthesizing

Scientific Information

for Fire and Fuels

Project Managers

Environmental Consequences

Team Leader

Elaine Kennedy Sutherland

USDA Forest Service

Rocky Mountain Research Station

Missoula, MT

William Elliot

David Hall

USDA Forest Service

Rocky Mountain Research Station

Moscow, ID

What is WEPP FuMe?

The Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) Fuel Management (FuMe) tool

was developed to estimate sediment generated by fuel management activities.

WEPP FuMe estimates sediment generated for 12 fuel-related conditions from a

single input. The conditions are an undisturbed forest, three severities of wildfire, three severities of prescribed fire, two severities of thinning, and three levels of road traffic.

Intended Users

The tool is designed to be used by erosion specialists for detailed analysis of

impacts of proposed fuel treatments, or by fuel management specialists for a

quick estimate of potential sedimentation impacts from a given stand treatment.

Intended Uses

WEPP FuMe is intended to be used as a planning tool for:

• Categorical Exclusion justification

• NEPA analysis

Required Inputs

The user must select or specify the attributes of the treated area(s) as listed in

table 1.

Table 1—Required inputs. The user can click the “question” buttons on the WEPP

FuMe input screen to obtain additional information for each input.

Attribute Description

Climate Select nearest weather station from a list, and further

 specify the latitude and longitude of the site.

Soil texture Select from a list of four choices.

Road density Divide the number of miles of road in the watershed

 where the treatments are located by the area of the

 watershed.

Length(s) of treated The user may wish to analyze several hillslopes that

 hillslope(s) make up the treated area.

Length(s) of untreated The buffer is that area at the bottom of a hill that is not

 buffer(s) thinned or burned during a prescribed fire.

Hillslope gradient(s) Steepness at the top, middle, and bottom of the

 hillslope; may be obtained with the aid of a GIS.

Time between disturbances Wildfire return interval, and proposed time between

 thinning and/or prescribed fire activities.

Pacific Northwest

Research Station

Rocky Mountain

Research Station
The Fuels Planning fact sheets are based on preliminary findings. Information from fact sheets will be synthesized in an upcoming publication.

Environmental Consequences Fact

Sheets

Look for fact sheet topics from the Environmental Consequences

Team including information about the effects of fire behavior and

alternative treatment strategies, Wildlife Response Model, weed responses, riparian systems, soil erosion, restoration objectives, treated

spaces, the Fire Effects Information System (FEIS), and the First

Order Fire Effects Model (FOFEM).

Fuels Planning: Synthesis and Integration

This fact sheet is one in a series being produced as part of a larger

project supported by the USDA Forest Service to synthesize new

knowledge and information relevant to fire and fuels management.

Fact sheets address topics related to stand structure, environmental

impacts, economics, and human responses to these factors. Information in the fact sheets is targeted for the dry forests of the Inland

West, but is often applicable across broad regions of the country.

For more information, please visit our Web site at:

www.fs.fed.us/fire/tech_transfer/synthesis/synthesis_index

What the Model Does

WEPP FuMe uses the inputs to carry out the 12 WEPP

runs. The results are converted to common units, and

long-term annual averages are determined based on the

time between disturbances. The results for an initial

analysis from the first four hillslope runs and the three

road runs are presented in an output table like table 2.

A narrative is then presented that aids the user in interpreting and reporting on the results. If the user is carrying out a NEPA or similar analysis requiring several

options, the tables summarizing all of the runs following the narrative can be used. The Disturbed WEPP

table (see table 3) contains the results from the first four

hillslope runs summarized in the first output table, plus

five additional runs to aid in preparing management alternatives. The final column of the Disturbed WEPP

table describes the inputs for each run. The runs are

intended to describe the conditions shown in the table.

In all cases, cover means soil cover due to surface vegetative residue and rock.

Figure 1 shows how some of the results may be summarized, in this example comparing a no-action alternative

(low traffic roads and high severity wildfire) to a fueltreatment alternative (high traffic roads, but anticipated

moderate severity wildfire). In this example, as shown

from table 1, there was no sediment generated by the

thinning operation, and little by the prescribed fire.

Figure 1 clearly shows that if fuel treatment reduces the

risk of high severity fire, there is a considerable drop in

long-term sediment generation. The user may wish to

copy and paste the results from each run directly into

an analysis document, or the document’s appendix.

WEPP FuMe only models hillslope surface erosion processes. It does not model channel processes such as sediment transport and gullying. The interface does not model

landslides on disturbed hillslopes or on road networks.

Table 2—Output table presenting predicted sediment yield

rates.

Run Cover Buffer Condition

percent

Undisturbed 100 — Conditions typically found 5 years

after a human disturbance, or 10

years after a wildfire

Thinned forest 85–100 yes Forest following a tractor

thinning operation

Prescribed fire 85–100 yes

High severity 30–45 no Only condition with

water wildfire repellant soils

Lower impact 95–100 yes For a helicopter or other thinning

low impact thinning operation

Higher severity 75–85 no A dry fall burn

 prescribed fire

Lower severity 90–100 yes A damp spring burn prescribed fire

Moderate severity 50–60 no

 wildfire

Low severity 70–80 no

 wildfire

Table 3—Example of a disturbed WEPP table.

How to Obtain the Model

WEPP FuMe is an online interface that can be run

with any recent Web browser. It can be found at: http:

//forest.moscowfsl.wsu.edu/fuels/

Figure 1—Graphic summary of results.