Burned Area Emergency Response Tools

Details of ERMiT

ERMiT is an FS WEPP Interface, based on the WEPP model developed by an interagency group of scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service, Forest Service, and Soil Conservation Service (currently Natural Resources Conservation Service); U.S. Department of Interior Bureau of Land Management; U.S. Geological Survey; and several university cooperators. The WEPP model predicts soil erosion and sediment delivery water using stochastic weather generation, infiltration theory, hydrology, soil physis, plant sciences, hydraulics, and erosion mechanics (Flanagan and Livingston, 1995). The Forest Service WEPP (FS WEPP) Interfaces were developed by the U.S. Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station, Soil and Water Engineering, Moscow, Idaho. They are user-friendly, online tools for various forest applications, and consist of the following individual interfaces:

• Cross Drain: Predicts sediment yield from a road segment across a buffer;
• Rock:Clime: Creates and downloads a WEPP climate file;
• WEPP:Road: Predicts erosion from insloped or outsloped forest roads;
• WEPP:Road Batch: Predicts erosion from multiple insloped or outsloped forest roads;
• Disturbed WEPP: Predicts erosion from rangeland, forestland, and forest skid trails;
• Erosion Risk Management Tool (ERMiT): Predicts the probability associated with a given amount of soil erosion in each of 5 years following wildfire, and estimates effectiveness of various hillslope treatments; and
• WEPP FuME (Fuel Management): Predicts soil erosion associated with fuel management practices, including prescribed fire, thinning, and a road network, and compares that prediction with erosion from wildfire.

Recent developments now allow WEPP simulations using digital sources of information with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). This GIS wizard is called GeoWEPP (http://www.geog.buffalo.edu/~rensch/geowepp/), and it has been under development for forest conditions since about 2002 with funding from the Joint Fire Science Program (Renschler 2003; Renschler 2007). GeoWEPP will allow BEAR team members to model pre- and post-fire conditions at a watershed scale.

Range/Chaparral Pre-Fire Community Description

This can be defined by users if "range" or "chaparral" is selected for vegetation type.

Hillslope Gradient

This consists of top gradient, the steepness (in percent) of the upper portion of the hillslope; middle gradient, the steepness of the main portion; and toe gradient, the steepness of the lower portion. The top and toe gradients each represent 10% of the hillslope length and the middle gradient represents 80%.

Damaging Storm

This is often short duration (less than 1 hour) high intensity storm as many BAER team members described.

Outputs

ERMiT reports rainfall event rankings and characteristics (including runoff), the exceedance probability associated with sediment delivery, and mitigation treatment comparisons (e.g. untreated, seeding, mulching with application rate of 0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2 ton/acre, erosion barriers, and contour-felled logs/straw wattles).

Hillslope Treatments

These include seeding, mulching, erosion barriers, and contour-felled logs/straw wattles.

Process-Based

ERMiT is applicable to any part of U.S. and to other countries as long as the required climate information is available.

Watershed Shape

ERMiT assumes a rectangular hillslope; therefore, it is difficult for BAER team members to apply for post-fire conditions at a watershed scale (>2 mi²).

REFERENCES

Elliot, William J. (2007, January 22-last update). Forest Service WEPP Interfaces [Homepage of Forest Service WEPP Interfaces], [Online]. Available: http://forest.moscowfsl.wsu.edu/fswepp/ [2008 January 3].

Flanagan, D. C.; Livingston, S. J., eds. 1995. WEPP user summary. NSERL Report No.11. West Lafayette, IN: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, National Soil Erosion Research Laboratory. 131 p.

Renschler, C. S. 2003. Designing geo-spatial interfaces to scale process models: the GeoWEPP approach. Hydrological Processes. 17(5): 1005-1017.

Renschler, Chris. S. (2008 March 28-last update). GeoWEPP: the Geo-spatial interface for the Water Erosion Prediction Project [Homepage of GeoWEPP], [Online]. Available: http://www.geog.buffalo.edu/~rensch/geowepp/ [2008 May 6].

Robichaud, Peter R.; Elliot, William J.; Pierson, Fredrick B.; Hall, David E.; Moffet, Corey A. (2006 January 18-last update). Erosion Risk Management Tool (ERMiT) Ver. 2006.01.18. [Homepage of ERMiT Erosion Risk Management Tool], [Onlline]. Available: http://forest.moscowfsl.wsu.edu/cgi-bin/fswepp/ermit/ermit.pl [2008 March 3].

Robichaud, Peter R.; Elliot, William J.; Pierson, Fredrick B.; Hall, David E.; Moffet, Corey A.; Ashmum, Louise E. 2007. Erosion Risk Management Tool (ERMiT) user manual (version 2006.01.18). Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-188. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 24 p.

 

USDA Forest Service - RMRS - Moscow Forestry Sciences Laboratory
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