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Our research spans ecosystems and methods, but all of our work stems from a unifying interest in advancing the sustainable and equitable management of social-ecological systems to sustain biodiversity and human well-being. Our work is interdisciplinary, drawing on methods from ranging from large-scale geospatial analyses to key informant interviews, and we collaborate with partners in government agencies, non-profit organizations, and cooperative extension.

Here is an overview of some of our recent and ongoing research themes:

1. Adapting to wildfires in social-ecological systems

The landscapes of the western US have experienced increased fire activity in recent decades, with larger areas burning in high severity fires. These increases are linked to climate change and also to legacies of fire suppression, exclusion of Indigenous peoples, and land management. Increased wildfire frequency has consequences for human lives, health, and well-being, while increases in the frequency and extent of high-severity fires impacts ecosystems and their functioning. As these landscapes represent complex social-ecological systems, disentangling the different drivers of change presents conceptual and methodological challenges. We synthesize spatiotemporally large datasets and use quasi-experimental methods from econometrics to understand the causal links between land management, wildfire activity, and ecosystem services in the western US.

We are currently working with collaborators in the US Forest Service and US Geological Survey to understand how fuel treatments -- land management activities that reduce fuel loads in forests to modify wildfire behavior and reduce burn severity -- impact ecosystem services and wildlife habitat. We are particularly interested in whether fuel treatments such as prescribed fire produce co-benefits for wildlife habitat, water provisioning, and carbon storage.

We are also working with local partners in Boulder County to understand how the principle of social equity is operationalized in wildfire preparedness planning. We are particularly interested in how marginalized and vulnerable communities access resources for preparing for and adapting to wildfires and how they are included in decision-making processes.

2. Climate change-driven ecological transformations

In the context of rapid, directional, and at times irreversible environmental change, we are seeing both abrupt and gradual ecological transformations: drivers such as increasing temperatures, more severe droughts, and nutrient pollution tip ecosystems over thresholds. These “new” ecosystems have different species compositions and ecological functioning, and they provide different levels of ecosystem services. We use causal inference methods, ecological functional trait analyses, and ecosystem service modeling to understand where, why, and how these ecological transformations occur and how they impact ecosystems and humans. We are collaborating with partners in government agencies (National Park Service, US Forest Service, and US Geological Survey) to help guide management responses to these ecological transformations. With funding from the North Central Climate Adaptation Science, Center, we are working with federal land management agencies in the Greater Yellowstone Area to operationalize the Resist-Accept-Direct framework for climate-informed management of ecological transformations.
 

3. Causal inference in environmental science

Quasi-experimental methods for causal inference offer powerful tools for understanding drivers of change in social-ecological systems. Through teaching and research, we help translate these methods for ecologists and environmental scientists. For example, in Spring 2023, Katherine co-developed and co-taught a course on causal inference for ecology/environmental science grad students at CU Boulder with Dr. Laura Dee. You can check out our course materials . We are also interested in methodological developments in causal inference. 

4. Conservation science + land use change

We are interested in drivers of land use change in protected areas, with a focus on the Amazon Basin. Here, we have integrated qualitative and quantitative data and methods to understand deforestation dynamics and the discourses that shape our understandings of these dynamics.

5. Sustainability in marine social-ecological systems

Although most of our current work is in terrestrial systems, the questions that motivate our work also apply in coastal and marine realms. We have collaborated with fisheries scientists, marine ecologists, resource economists, and fisheries managers to contribute to adaptive fisheries management and advance our understandings of the social-ecological effects of rapid environmental change in coastal and marine systems.