September 13, 2022 • 21 mins
Wildfire smoke can seriously impact humans' health, but scientists have discovered that it can also affect the health of ecosystems. On the Living With Fire Podcast, Professor Sudeep Chandra, director of the Global Water Center at the University of Nevada, Reno, talks about how scientists have been working to understand these impacts on Lake Tahoe's aquatic ecosystem.
For more full episode details including the transcript, visit https://www.buzzsprout.com/1819551/episodes/11306705
Stakeholders in the Tahoe Basin have been working for decades to “Keep Tahoe Blue,” and have been trying to control algae growth in the lake. Chandra explains that one direct effect wildfire smoke can potentially have on the lake is stimulating algae growth.
"So just like Miracle-Gro has a nice combination of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium to grow our garden plants, it turns out smoke has a ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus. Sometimes it's optimal, and sometimes it's not," explains Chandra.
In addition to providing nutrients for fertilizing algae, Chandra explains that smoke can also affect the amount of light hitting the lake, potentially reducing the amount of ultraviolet light, which kills algae cells.
With wildfires occurring more frequently and becoming more intense, Assistant Professor Christina Restaino, director of the Living With Fire program, explained what it's like for scientists working in fire right now.
"We're entering this new era of no analog experiences, where these ecosystems are experiencing this smoke every single year or fire every single year. We don't have an analog from the past to understand that. So yeah, it's exciting, and it's really unknown."
To learn more, check out the resources below:
- Caldor Fire impact on Lake Tahoe’s clarity, ecology studied amidst ongoing wildfire season
- Global Water Center
- Living With Fire
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Megan Kay (00:10):
This is the Living with Fire Podcast brought to you
by the Living with Fire Programat the University of Nevada,
Reno extension.
Sudeep Chandra (00:16):
And what's happening today, as everyone is
noticing, five years ago, we hada fire. Four years ago, we had
fires. Three years ago, we hadfires. Two years ago, the
frequency, or the amount over aparticular period of time of
these fires is increasing a lot.
That is where the hot science isright now. Because historically,
(00:37):
the lake could recover becausethe fires didn't occur as much.
But now, year after year, you'regetting poked in the in the
chest. Does your body eventuallyrespond? Probably.
Megan Kay (00:55):
Hi there. I'm Megan Kay, your host and Outreach
Coordinator for the Living withFire Program, and you're
listening to the first episodeof season two of the Living with
Fire Podcast. It's been a whilesince we've released new
episodes, and we're excited tobe back. We've been busy this
year traveling all across thestate of Nevada, working with
communities and educating folksabout how to prepare for
(01:17):
wildfire. We've also beenworking on some new and exciting
projects, which we'll tell youmore about later on the podcast.
So with these episodes thatwe're putting out in 2022 we
really wanted to focus onaspects of living with fire that
are maybe not always visible,that are unseen. And so that
(01:39):
made us think about wildfiresmoke and its impacts not only
on health, but ecosystems. Youjust heard from Professor Sudeep
Chandra.
Sudeep Chandra (01:48):
Sudeep Chandra at the University of Nevada,
Reno. I'm a professor in theBiology Department, and I direct
the University's Global WaterCenter and the Osmond Institute
for Global Studies.
Megan Kay (01:58):
So last August, August 2021 when the Caldor fire
was burning and threatening LakeTahoe, I became aware of some
research that the Global WaterCenter was doing about wildfire
smoke and its effect on LakeTahoe. So I kind of filed that
away in my memory. And when wewere putting together topics for
(02:19):
this season of the podcast, Ireally wanted to get to talk to
Professor Chandra about thatresearch. We're also joined by
Dr Christina Restaino, theDirector of the Living with Fire
Program. I'm so glad she was onthe interview. She offered a lot
of insight. Was able to kind ofexpand on some topics. So enjoy
that conversation and enjoy thisepisode. Thanks.
(02:46):
So how long have you been withUNR?
Sudeep Chandra (02:49):
Yeah, so I've been here at the University of
Nevada for 16 years. I had alittle stint where I left for a
little bit to go to Washington,DC, but then came back, and most
of my work involves these kindof interconnectedness of trying
to understand water systems,whether rivers or lakes, as a
limnologist, and what that meansfor society, but then we do some
(03:13):
basic research on the influenceof climate or wildfires on
lakes. So it's somewhatsocietal, but it's also just
kind of what happens to naturalbiodiversity or the functioning
of ecosystems so.
Megan Kay (03:24):
So what have you can I just want to back up real
quick and describe not juststudying water and biodiversity,
but water and people.
Sudeep Chandra (03:31):
Yeah. So when we end up thinking so some of our
global projects and our localprojects, when we try to put
them into context, water is justcritical for life, but it's not
just drinking water. It's thesometimes it's the services out
of water, the fisheries.
Sometimes it's the inherentvalue too, of biodiversity. And
so we always try in our projectsto connect some fundamental
process within water to see whyit may be changing or not, or
(03:54):
maybe it's just dynamic. Itdoesn't change in a bad or good
way. It's just altering becauseof climate change or land use
development, and what we try todo is pin it to try to
understand what happens tosocietal response. So for
example, when we look at LakeTahoe, is an excellent example
of this. We spent 15 yearstrying to understand the
(04:16):
influence of different types ofinvasive species at the lake.
Why study invasive species justto study them? In this case, we
tried to understand what it doesto the water quality of the near
shore of the lake, increasedalgal growth. Is there
interactions with in warmingtemperatures, and does that make
stuff at the lake get worse orbetter? And by doing that, then
(04:36):
we connect into the policymakers, and through this new for
example, Tahoe Science AdvisoryCouncil, we can provide
information to this council andto the managers that are part of
the council to make policychanges that will help improve
Lake Tahoe.
Megan Kay (04:52):
And how does wildfire intersect with that?
Sudeep Chandra (04:55):
So wildfire is a great topic to be studying right
now, not just inherent study ofwhat the wildfire impacts are,
but how is the community goingto respond, or how is the
biology going to respond in thelake? And we've had a series of
papers now the last three years,thanks to our researchers at the
Global Water Center, and they'vebeen focusing on not the direct
(05:15):
effects of fire, which is whatmost of us are accustomed to,
the runoff from ash and whatgoes into water, which is very
important, but in this case,what I call the teleconnective
effects, the smoke goes up intothe atmosphere, and it can move
hundreds to thousands of milesaway. And as the smoke plume
goes into the atmosphere from awildfire, the smoke ash
(05:35):
particles and where they'redeposited and the quality of
those particles can change. Sosomething closer to a fire might
be different, and then something300 miles away, those smoke
particles might have differentproperties. Humans know this
inherently, because when youtake deep breaths, you know
whether you're getting kind ofchoked out from the wildfire one
day from the smoke and that'sgenerated, or maybe it's a
(05:57):
better day for air quality, andyou can breathe a little easier.
Well, lake ecosystems and riversrespond the same way. But what
we don't have an understandingis how bad that response can be,
or how good it good, quote,unquote, it might be for the
ecosystem.
Megan Kay (06:10):
I wanted to take a quick break to talk about the
Living with Fire Program. Maybeyou found this podcast and
you're wondering, what is theLiving with Fire Program? Well,
we've been around since 1997we're managed by the University
of Nevada, Reno extension, andwe're really a collaborative
(06:31):
effort amongst federal, stateand local firefighting agencies
as well as resource managementagencies to help people adapt,
prepare and live more safelywith wildfire. So if you haven't
already, check out our website,livingwithfire.com where you'll
find all of our resources andtools that will help you live
more safely with wildfire. Okay,back to the show.
Sudeep Chandra (07:02):
So I'll give you an example. Lake Tahoe had fires
last year, the Dixie and Caldorfires. There was smoke generated
all around us. Some of thatsmoke went north, some of it
went south. Someone went eastwest, but when it landed on the
lake, particularly the Caldorfire smoke, the the amount of
smoke that landed on the lakewas much higher towards the
(07:22):
south end of the basin, closerto the Caldor fire, and the
north end of the basin, whereIncline Village is, or my
favorite place, the AlibiBrewery, where we had one of our
sampling locations, the amountof smoke that deposited on the
lake was less compared to thesouth side closer to the fire so
but if you look at the qualityof that ash, our colleague from
(07:45):
the Utah State University as acollaborator, was able to find
out that the quality of thatsmoke was much lower, meaning
less nitrogen and phosphorus inthat smoke closer to the Caldor
fire, where there was more fire,where there was more deposition
or placement of the ash onto thelake. But if you go to the north
shore, again, Incline Village,Alibi Brewery area, there were
(08:06):
less particles deposited, buthad a lot more nitrogen
phosphorus. It was superreactive in the laboratory so.
Megan Kay (08:13):
And nitrogen is good or bad.
Sudeep Chandra (08:14):
Yeah. And so now, why are we worried about
nitrogen phosphorus? Well, itturns out, if nitrogen
phosphorus is given at the sameat the right ratio, then you
grow more algae. That's onedirect effect. And at Tahoe,
we're trying to actually controlour algal populations. So just
like Miracle Grow has a nicecombination of nitrogen,
phosphorus and potassium to growour garden plants, it turns out
(08:34):
smoke has a ratio of nitrogen tophosphorus. Sometimes it's
optimal and sometimes it's not.
And so we're able to try toconnect what wildfire smoke
might do for nutrients ofnitrogen, phosphorus coming to
the lake to stimulate algae. Andthose are the experiments we're
running now. I will mention justone alternative effect. So
that's the fertilization of thelake through the nutrients. The
(08:56):
second one is the smoke. Aseveryone knows, when you go in
the West, at least when you getimpacted by wildfire smoke, you
can't see as far across yourwatershed. You can't see across
the city. You're getting amazingsunsets, but the particles in
the air are thick. Well, thatthickness of particles in the
air from wildfire smoke affectsthe amount of light hitting a
(09:16):
lake, and light is needed forplant growth, or ultraviolet
light in these clear waterlakes, which which actually
kills algal cells, helps controlalgae. And so when you have
smoke in the atmosphere, youmight influence the amount of
ultraviolet light that wascleaning the lake of algae, but
instead it it reduces theultraviolet light, and you might
get more algal growth. And sothere's these, these tugs and
(09:39):
pulls between the fertilizationand the light change that might
affect quality of.
Christina Restaino (09:45):
So incredibly fascinating. Is there
anything mitigation wise thatyou can do, if, like, okay,
there's a huge fire Lake. Tahoeis a special protected Lake.
What is there anything that canbe done to counteract that algal
growth?
Sudeep Chandra (09:59):
Yeah, and so that's a great question, and
often our reaction in society isto figure out, like, oh, okay,
now that something's occurring,let's try to fix it. But I try
to provide this analogy thatit's kind of like when you're
when you have a heart attack,it's not about fixing the heart
attack immediately. It's moreabout making sure you don't get
the second heart attack. And Ithink for now, there aren't the
(10:22):
technologies of scrubbers andthings that might remove smoke
from the atmosphere or addingthings to a lake that can help
clean it up immediately. So whatwe need to do, and what we were
suggesting that we should workon, is rather than having just
watershed protection of LakeTahoe, where the agencies focus
on the watershed itself becauseof the properties of runoff that
(10:42):
go to the lake. The agenciesshould be broadening their scope
to do Regional WildfireProtection hundreds of miles
around the basin, and that wouldallow us to then have buffers
around the amount of wildfiresmoke that can be generated a
couple 100 miles around thebasin, and the quality that's
deposited.
Megan Kay (10:59):
Because if it's coming from further out, like
right now there's a fire inYosemite. If it's coming from
there, then the quality of thatash.
Sudeep Chandra (11:06):
Might influence us more so than the than if it
was directly next to us.
Christina Restaino (11:11):
So why I missed why exactly that happens?
Why? What changes in thechemical property of the smoke
as it moves further away?
Sudeep Chandra (11:20):
Yeah, we're not entirely sure, but what we
suspect is that when burnshappen hot, then they're
actually burning up andtransforming the chemicals
within the ash so they're putinto the atmosphere and
aerosolized and not in theparticulate. That basically
means that hot burning stuff hasless elements in it, and it's
all been transformed into gassesor other types of.
Megan Kay (11:42):
Because it's been like, it's obliterated.
Sudeep Chandra (11:45):
Exactly, versus the stuff that is, the
particulates that are super fineis the remnant of that hot burn,
the stuff that didn't, thatdidn't burn. But it can get
because they're fine particlescan get transported much further
distances, by the atmosphere, bythe wind.
Megan Kay (12:00):
Interesting. And then with smoke, is density a thing
like, for like, because when Ithink about, like, a low
intensity fire, just the amountof vegetation that's consumed,
versus a high intensity fire,where you could just be, like,
consuming a bunch of vegetationat the same time. So is that
something.
Sudeep Chandra (12:17):
No absolutely those are sort of the next steps
in this type of researchproductivity or research focused
area, so we were focusingdirectly on the ash outputs,
taking advantage of the fires insome ways, to try to understand
what the ecosystem impacts are,but these would be next case
scenarios. We really need to docollaborative science with
people who study the vegetationand the density of vegetation on
(12:39):
landscape and as fires movethrough, how much ash is
generated, we need collaboratorsthat study atmospheric physics
to understand how thoseparticles are actually
transported and how far theymight go across the landscape of
Nevada or all the way to NewYork, in some cases, through the
jet stream. So so this type ofcollaborative science is what
makes fire science, in some waysthe most exciting of sciences,
(13:01):
because it really is going toinvolve multiple disciplines,
and we need to ramp up on thatvery quickly. We can't just
wait. I hope we don't just waita generation to get all the
groups together to talk. Thenice thing about, you know,
working with you has been thatwe were on a team meeting last
summer with the National ScienceFoundation to think about true
(13:22):
collaborative science aroundfire science, and we need to
push that even further in atimely manner, where we have all
these disciplines breaking downtheir boundaries. And I think
that's the great time for us inscience right now, is to cross
those disciplines.
Megan Kay (13:41):
Speaking of wildfire smoke, we actually just put out
a guide called Living withSmoke, "How to be prepared for
smoke exposure." In our guide,we talk about what is in
wildfire smoke and why it'spotentially hazardous to your
health. We also talk about howyou can prepare for wildfire
smoke and stay safe indoors andoutdoors during smoke events,
(14:03):
you can find that guide in theresources section of our website
at livingwithfire.com,Can you like, is there any
hypothesis that you have as to,you know, how maybe the lake has
handled extreme ash events, orother lakes have handled extreme
(14:29):
ash events.
Sudeep Chandra (14:31):
I'm suggesting is we don't want to when fires
occur. We don't want to developtools and technologies just like
we can respond to them. That'sjust hard to do, right? We need
to treat this thing at just amuch larger scale, because the
burns are big, and they're goingto be continuing to continuing
to occur, but kind of inrelation to what fire has done
(14:52):
to these aquatic ecosystems inthe past, and how important is
it? That's an emerging area ofscience as well right now and
our paleo scientists are some ofthe best scientists on the
planet here at the University ofNevada, my colleague, Paula
Noble, for example, has studiedsort of geologic history of Lake
Tahoe over time, and shecollects cores from Lake Tahoe
(15:13):
or from the lakes in the norththat I described earlier, or our
small mountain lakes, and thenshe can look at changes in the
amount of algal growth in thelake over time, which is an
indicator of water quality. Andwhat we do know, not just in
relation to fire, but we do knowthese historic, big change
events around climate whichmight lead to fire, droughts
(15:38):
would change the level ofproductivity in the lake, less
runoff might lead to lessproduction. Some of the cores,
for example, at Crater Lake thatthey've taken or that other
other folks have taken, willhave ash in them. So we know
that periodic history and reviewof what those fire events and
(15:58):
frequencies are that affect thelake. What's different about
those studies, where you mightsee effects of regional or
global fires on lakes, is yousee them as many perturbations,
meaning many changes in the lakeover time, but the lake comes
back to an equilibrium. Andoften people say, well, the lake
will come back to anequilibrium, right? And you're
(16:20):
like, yes, it does, but thefrequency and the amount of
those fires was far less overthe historical record. And
what's happening today, aseveryone is noticing, five years
ago we had a fire. Four yearsago, we had fires. Three years
ago, we had fires two years ago,the frequency or the amount over
a particular period of time ofthese fires is increasing a lot.
(16:42):
That is where the hot science isright now, because historically,
the lake could recover becausethe fires didn't occur as much.
But now, year after year, you'regetting poked in the in the
chest. Does your body eventuallyrespond? Probably like you get a
bruise eventually, and maybeeventually after a bruise, you
might get angry, and then aftergetting angry, you might get a
(17:04):
stroke. And so that analogy issimilar to what we think could
be happening in lake and riversystems. Smoke comes in one
year, smoke comes in, the secondyear, smoke comes in. The third
year, after a while, a lakecan't purify itself over and
over again.
Christina Restaino (17:18):
We've learned so much in science from
the past and how ecosystems haveresponded to disturbances like
drought or fire, etc, in thepast. But we're, we're entering
this, this new era of no analogexperiences, right where, where
these ecosystems areexperiencing this right smoke
(17:41):
every single year, fire everysingle year, that's we don't
have an analog from the past tounderstand that. So, yeah, it's
exciting and it's reallyunknown.
Sudeep Chandra (17:50):
Here's another way to think about it too. Is
it's like it's exciting andunknown, but we live in a world
full of humans today compared towhere we had lived in these
systems years and years ago. Sothe question is also, how do we
want our lakes and rivers to beand where do we want to manage
it.
Christina Restaino (18:06):
100% we don't always need to be thinking
that, Oh, well, in the past, ourour ecosystems were in a certain
state, and that's what we alwaysneed to be going for. We need to
be thinking about what's what'san adapted ecosystem to our
current human needs and wantsfor ecological integrity? And
(18:31):
thinking a lot about ecosystemservices, and what are the
ecosystem services that we needfrom our ecosystems and our
lakes and our and our air, andwe always talk about Megan, how
humans are a part of ourecosystems, and they always have
been, and we've always been landtenders and stewards of the land
(18:54):
through thousands of years. Andcontemporarily it feels like we
talk a lot about, well, humansare over here, and ecosystems
are over here, and ecosystemsneed to be functioning in this
way that is separate fromhumans, because humans are
adulterating those ecosystems,but we're part of the
(19:14):
ecosystems, and so we reallyneed to be thinking about land
management and policy anddecision making moving forward
in the future that is reallyintegrating that human
ecological relationship andmaking it on the forefront of
how we're making decisions.
Sudeep Chandra (19:29):
The exciting thing about science today is
that Ecological Sciences andNatural Sciences is basically we
are doing science like we'venever done it before. There is
more. I'm a pretty upbeat personon science and and humans in
society more than 100 years ago,when you look at the literature
100 years ago, from ecology, wewere just studying ecology and
(19:51):
ecosystems. But today, we havesuch opportunities with agencies
that want the information, orsocieties that want the
information on science and so Ithink this integration is a
great time. What you're justpointing out is a great time for
us as scientists to be fullyimmersed into wanting to use our
information to make betterpolicy and improve our society.
(20:13):
So I'm pretty actually hopeful.
I know fire is a challengingsubject, and so is climate and
drought, but there are also manyopportunities out there, and
scientists and engineers canguide this way forward, if we
cross our boundaries, and if oursociety and community is willing
to listen to the information.
Christina Restaino (20:32):
Absolutely, and if we allow room for
innovation in technology andengineering and these, you know,
more material sciences, if youwill, to help us come up with
adaptive solutions. And I thinkthat, you know, it's really that
interdisciplinary,transdisciplinary, any kind of
(20:54):
term you want to use for it,where we're, you know, working
across different boundaries inscience, in society, to really
kind of co-produce these toolsand knowledge sets that that we
can use to solve problems.
Megan Kay (21:12):
Thank you for listening to the Living with
Fire Podcast. You can find morestories and resources about
wildfire at our website,livingwithfire.com the Living
with Fire Program is funded bythe Bureau of Land Management,
the Nevada Division of Forestryand the US Forest Service, and
were managed by the Universityof Nevada, Reno extension, an
equal opportunity institution.
This is the Living with Fire Podcast brought to you
by the Living with Fire Programat the University of Nevada,
Reno extension.
Sudeep Chandra (00:16):
And what's happening today, as everyone is
noticing, five years ago, we hada fire. Four years ago, we had
fires. Three years ago, we hadfires. Two years ago, the
frequency, or the amount over aparticular period of time of
these fires is increasing a lot.
That is where the hot science isright now. Because historically,
(00:37):
the lake could recover becausethe fires didn't occur as much.
But now, year after year, you'regetting poked in the in the
chest. Does your body eventuallyrespond? Probably.
Megan Kay (00:55):
Hi there. I'm Megan Kay, your host and Outreach
Coordinator for the Living withFire Program, and you're
listening to the first episodeof season two of the Living with
Fire Podcast. It's been a whilesince we've released new
episodes, and we're excited tobe back. We've been busy this
year traveling all across thestate of Nevada, working with
communities and educating folksabout how to prepare for
(01:17):
wildfire. We've also beenworking on some new and exciting
projects, which we'll tell youmore about later on the podcast.
So with these episodes thatwe're putting out in 2022 we
really wanted to focus onaspects of living with fire that
are maybe not always visible,that are unseen. And so that
(01:39):
made us think about wildfiresmoke and its impacts not only
on health, but ecosystems. Youjust heard from Professor Sudeep
Chandra.
Sudeep Chandra (01:48):
Sudeep Chandra at the University of Nevada,
Reno. I'm a professor in theBiology Department, and I direct
the University's Global WaterCenter and the Osmond Institute
for Global Studies.
Megan Kay (01:58):
So last August, August 2021 when the Caldor fire
was burning and threatening LakeTahoe, I became aware of some
research that the Global WaterCenter was doing about wildfire
smoke and its effect on LakeTahoe. So I kind of filed that
away in my memory. And when wewere putting together topics for
(02:19):
this season of the podcast, Ireally wanted to get to talk to
Professor Chandra about thatresearch. We're also joined by
Dr Christina Restaino, theDirector of the Living with Fire
Program. I'm so glad she was onthe interview. She offered a lot
of insight. Was able to kind ofexpand on some topics. So enjoy
that conversation and enjoy thisepisode. Thanks.
(02:46):
So how long have you been withUNR?
Sudeep Chandra (02:49):
Yeah, so I've been here at the University of
Nevada for 16 years. I had alittle stint where I left for a
little bit to go to Washington,DC, but then came back, and most
of my work involves these kindof interconnectedness of trying
to understand water systems,whether rivers or lakes, as a
limnologist, and what that meansfor society, but then we do some
(03:13):
basic research on the influenceof climate or wildfires on
lakes. So it's somewhatsocietal, but it's also just
kind of what happens to naturalbiodiversity or the functioning
of ecosystems so.
Megan Kay (03:24):
So what have you can I just want to back up real
quick and describe not juststudying water and biodiversity,
but water and people.
Sudeep Chandra (03:31):
Yeah. So when we end up thinking so some of our
global projects and our localprojects, when we try to put
them into context, water is justcritical for life, but it's not
just drinking water. It's thesometimes it's the services out
of water, the fisheries.
Sometimes it's the inherentvalue too, of biodiversity. And
so we always try in our projectsto connect some fundamental
process within water to see whyit may be changing or not, or
(03:54):
maybe it's just dynamic. Itdoesn't change in a bad or good
way. It's just altering becauseof climate change or land use
development, and what we try todo is pin it to try to
understand what happens tosocietal response. So for
example, when we look at LakeTahoe, is an excellent example
of this. We spent 15 yearstrying to understand the
(04:16):
influence of different types ofinvasive species at the lake.
Why study invasive species justto study them? In this case, we
tried to understand what it doesto the water quality of the near
shore of the lake, increasedalgal growth. Is there
interactions with in warmingtemperatures, and does that make
stuff at the lake get worse orbetter? And by doing that, then
(04:36):
we connect into the policymakers, and through this new for
example, Tahoe Science AdvisoryCouncil, we can provide
information to this council andto the managers that are part of
the council to make policychanges that will help improve
Lake Tahoe.
Megan Kay (04:52):
And how does wildfire intersect with that?
Sudeep Chandra (04:55):
So wildfire is a great topic to be studying right
now, not just inherent study ofwhat the wildfire impacts are,
but how is the community goingto respond, or how is the
biology going to respond in thelake? And we've had a series of
papers now the last three years,thanks to our researchers at the
Global Water Center, and they'vebeen focusing on not the direct
(05:15):
effects of fire, which is whatmost of us are accustomed to,
the runoff from ash and whatgoes into water, which is very
important, but in this case,what I call the teleconnective
effects, the smoke goes up intothe atmosphere, and it can move
hundreds to thousands of milesaway. And as the smoke plume
goes into the atmosphere from awildfire, the smoke ash
(05:35):
particles and where they'redeposited and the quality of
those particles can change. Sosomething closer to a fire might
be different, and then something300 miles away, those smoke
particles might have differentproperties. Humans know this
inherently, because when youtake deep breaths, you know
whether you're getting kind ofchoked out from the wildfire one
day from the smoke and that'sgenerated, or maybe it's a
(05:57):
better day for air quality, andyou can breathe a little easier.
Well, lake ecosystems and riversrespond the same way. But what
we don't have an understandingis how bad that response can be,
or how good it good, quote,unquote, it might be for the
ecosystem.
Megan Kay (06:10):
I wanted to take a quick break to talk about the
Living with Fire Program. Maybeyou found this podcast and
you're wondering, what is theLiving with Fire Program? Well,
we've been around since 1997we're managed by the University
of Nevada, Reno extension, andwe're really a collaborative
(06:31):
effort amongst federal, stateand local firefighting agencies
as well as resource managementagencies to help people adapt,
prepare and live more safelywith wildfire. So if you haven't
already, check out our website,livingwithfire.com where you'll
find all of our resources andtools that will help you live
more safely with wildfire. Okay,back to the show.
Sudeep Chandra (07:02):
So I'll give you an example. Lake Tahoe had fires
last year, the Dixie and Caldorfires. There was smoke generated
all around us. Some of thatsmoke went north, some of it
went south. Someone went eastwest, but when it landed on the
lake, particularly the Caldorfire smoke, the the amount of
smoke that landed on the lakewas much higher towards the
(07:22):
south end of the basin, closerto the Caldor fire, and the
north end of the basin, whereIncline Village is, or my
favorite place, the AlibiBrewery, where we had one of our
sampling locations, the amountof smoke that deposited on the
lake was less compared to thesouth side closer to the fire so
but if you look at the qualityof that ash, our colleague from
(07:45):
the Utah State University as acollaborator, was able to find
out that the quality of thatsmoke was much lower, meaning
less nitrogen and phosphorus inthat smoke closer to the Caldor
fire, where there was more fire,where there was more deposition
or placement of the ash onto thelake. But if you go to the north
shore, again, Incline Village,Alibi Brewery area, there were
(08:06):
less particles deposited, buthad a lot more nitrogen
phosphorus. It was superreactive in the laboratory so.
Megan Kay (08:13):
And nitrogen is good or bad.
Sudeep Chandra (08:14):
Yeah. And so now, why are we worried about
nitrogen phosphorus? Well, itturns out, if nitrogen
phosphorus is given at the sameat the right ratio, then you
grow more algae. That's onedirect effect. And at Tahoe,
we're trying to actually controlour algal populations. So just
like Miracle Grow has a nicecombination of nitrogen,
phosphorus and potassium to growour garden plants, it turns out
(08:34):
smoke has a ratio of nitrogen tophosphorus. Sometimes it's
optimal and sometimes it's not.
And so we're able to try toconnect what wildfire smoke
might do for nutrients ofnitrogen, phosphorus coming to
the lake to stimulate algae. Andthose are the experiments we're
running now. I will mention justone alternative effect. So
that's the fertilization of thelake through the nutrients. The
(08:56):
second one is the smoke. Aseveryone knows, when you go in
the West, at least when you getimpacted by wildfire smoke, you
can't see as far across yourwatershed. You can't see across
the city. You're getting amazingsunsets, but the particles in
the air are thick. Well, thatthickness of particles in the
air from wildfire smoke affectsthe amount of light hitting a
(09:16):
lake, and light is needed forplant growth, or ultraviolet
light in these clear waterlakes, which which actually
kills algal cells, helps controlalgae. And so when you have
smoke in the atmosphere, youmight influence the amount of
ultraviolet light that wascleaning the lake of algae, but
instead it it reduces theultraviolet light, and you might
get more algal growth. And sothere's these, these tugs and
(09:39):
pulls between the fertilizationand the light change that might
affect quality of.
Christina Restaino (09:45):
So incredibly fascinating. Is there
anything mitigation wise thatyou can do, if, like, okay,
there's a huge fire Lake. Tahoeis a special protected Lake.
What is there anything that canbe done to counteract that algal
growth?
Sudeep Chandra (09:59):
Yeah, and so that's a great question, and
often our reaction in society isto figure out, like, oh, okay,
now that something's occurring,let's try to fix it. But I try
to provide this analogy thatit's kind of like when you're
when you have a heart attack,it's not about fixing the heart
attack immediately. It's moreabout making sure you don't get
the second heart attack. And Ithink for now, there aren't the
(10:22):
technologies of scrubbers andthings that might remove smoke
from the atmosphere or addingthings to a lake that can help
clean it up immediately. So whatwe need to do, and what we were
suggesting that we should workon, is rather than having just
watershed protection of LakeTahoe, where the agencies focus
on the watershed itself becauseof the properties of runoff that
(10:42):
go to the lake. The agenciesshould be broadening their scope
to do Regional WildfireProtection hundreds of miles
around the basin, and that wouldallow us to then have buffers
around the amount of wildfiresmoke that can be generated a
couple 100 miles around thebasin, and the quality that's
deposited.
Megan Kay (10:59):
Because if it's coming from further out, like
right now there's a fire inYosemite. If it's coming from
there, then the quality of thatash.
Sudeep Chandra (11:06):
Might influence us more so than the than if it
was directly next to us.
Christina Restaino (11:11):
So why I missed why exactly that happens?
Why? What changes in thechemical property of the smoke
as it moves further away?
Sudeep Chandra (11:20):
Yeah, we're not entirely sure, but what we
suspect is that when burnshappen hot, then they're
actually burning up andtransforming the chemicals
within the ash so they're putinto the atmosphere and
aerosolized and not in theparticulate. That basically
means that hot burning stuff hasless elements in it, and it's
all been transformed into gassesor other types of.
Megan Kay (11:42):
Because it's been like, it's obliterated.
Sudeep Chandra (11:45):
Exactly, versus the stuff that is, the
particulates that are super fineis the remnant of that hot burn,
the stuff that didn't, thatdidn't burn. But it can get
because they're fine particlescan get transported much further
distances, by the atmosphere, bythe wind.
Megan Kay (12:00):
Interesting. And then with smoke, is density a thing
like, for like, because when Ithink about, like, a low
intensity fire, just the amountof vegetation that's consumed,
versus a high intensity fire,where you could just be, like,
consuming a bunch of vegetationat the same time. So is that
something.
Sudeep Chandra (12:17):
No absolutely those are sort of the next steps
in this type of researchproductivity or research focused
area, so we were focusingdirectly on the ash outputs,
taking advantage of the fires insome ways, to try to understand
what the ecosystem impacts are,but these would be next case
scenarios. We really need to docollaborative science with
people who study the vegetationand the density of vegetation on
(12:39):
landscape and as fires movethrough, how much ash is
generated, we need collaboratorsthat study atmospheric physics
to understand how thoseparticles are actually
transported and how far theymight go across the landscape of
Nevada or all the way to NewYork, in some cases, through the
jet stream. So so this type ofcollaborative science is what
makes fire science, in some waysthe most exciting of sciences,
(13:01):
because it really is going toinvolve multiple disciplines,
and we need to ramp up on thatvery quickly. We can't just
wait. I hope we don't just waita generation to get all the
groups together to talk. Thenice thing about, you know,
working with you has been thatwe were on a team meeting last
summer with the National ScienceFoundation to think about true
(13:22):
collaborative science aroundfire science, and we need to
push that even further in atimely manner, where we have all
these disciplines breaking downtheir boundaries. And I think
that's the great time for us inscience right now, is to cross
those disciplines.
Megan Kay (13:41):
Speaking of wildfire smoke, we actually just put out
a guide called Living withSmoke, "How to be prepared for
smoke exposure." In our guide,we talk about what is in
wildfire smoke and why it'spotentially hazardous to your
health. We also talk about howyou can prepare for wildfire
smoke and stay safe indoors andoutdoors during smoke events,
(14:03):
you can find that guide in theresources section of our website
at livingwithfire.com,Can you like, is there any
hypothesis that you have as to,you know, how maybe the lake has
handled extreme ash events, orother lakes have handled extreme
(14:29):
ash events.
Sudeep Chandra (14:31):
I'm suggesting is we don't want to when fires
occur. We don't want to developtools and technologies just like
we can respond to them. That'sjust hard to do, right? We need
to treat this thing at just amuch larger scale, because the
burns are big, and they're goingto be continuing to continuing
to occur, but kind of inrelation to what fire has done
(14:52):
to these aquatic ecosystems inthe past, and how important is
it? That's an emerging area ofscience as well right now and
our paleo scientists are some ofthe best scientists on the
planet here at the University ofNevada, my colleague, Paula
Noble, for example, has studiedsort of geologic history of Lake
Tahoe over time, and shecollects cores from Lake Tahoe
(15:13):
or from the lakes in the norththat I described earlier, or our
small mountain lakes, and thenshe can look at changes in the
amount of algal growth in thelake over time, which is an
indicator of water quality. Andwhat we do know, not just in
relation to fire, but we do knowthese historic, big change
events around climate whichmight lead to fire, droughts
(15:38):
would change the level ofproductivity in the lake, less
runoff might lead to lessproduction. Some of the cores,
for example, at Crater Lake thatthey've taken or that other
other folks have taken, willhave ash in them. So we know
that periodic history and reviewof what those fire events and
(15:58):
frequencies are that affect thelake. What's different about
those studies, where you mightsee effects of regional or
global fires on lakes, is yousee them as many perturbations,
meaning many changes in the lakeover time, but the lake comes
back to an equilibrium. Andoften people say, well, the lake
will come back to anequilibrium, right? And you're
(16:20):
like, yes, it does, but thefrequency and the amount of
those fires was far less overthe historical record. And
what's happening today, aseveryone is noticing, five years
ago we had a fire. Four yearsago, we had fires. Three years
ago, we had fires two years ago,the frequency or the amount over
a particular period of time ofthese fires is increasing a lot.
(16:42):
That is where the hot science isright now, because historically,
the lake could recover becausethe fires didn't occur as much.
But now, year after year, you'regetting poked in the in the
chest. Does your body eventuallyrespond? Probably like you get a
bruise eventually, and maybeeventually after a bruise, you
might get angry, and then aftergetting angry, you might get a
(17:04):
stroke. And so that analogy issimilar to what we think could
be happening in lake and riversystems. Smoke comes in one
year, smoke comes in, the secondyear, smoke comes in. The third
year, after a while, a lakecan't purify itself over and
over again.
Christina Restaino (17:18):
We've learned so much in science from
the past and how ecosystems haveresponded to disturbances like
drought or fire, etc, in thepast. But we're, we're entering
this, this new era of no analogexperiences, right where, where
these ecosystems areexperiencing this right smoke
(17:41):
every single year, fire everysingle year, that's we don't
have an analog from the past tounderstand that. So, yeah, it's
exciting and it's reallyunknown.
Sudeep Chandra (17:50):
Here's another way to think about it too. Is
it's like it's exciting andunknown, but we live in a world
full of humans today compared towhere we had lived in these
systems years and years ago. Sothe question is also, how do we
want our lakes and rivers to beand where do we want to manage
it.
Christina Restaino (18:06):
100% we don't always need to be thinking
that, Oh, well, in the past, ourour ecosystems were in a certain
state, and that's what we alwaysneed to be going for. We need to
be thinking about what's what'san adapted ecosystem to our
current human needs and wantsfor ecological integrity? And
(18:31):
thinking a lot about ecosystemservices, and what are the
ecosystem services that we needfrom our ecosystems and our
lakes and our and our air, andwe always talk about Megan, how
humans are a part of ourecosystems, and they always have
been, and we've always been landtenders and stewards of the land
(18:54):
through thousands of years. Andcontemporarily it feels like we
talk a lot about, well, humansare over here, and ecosystems
are over here, and ecosystemsneed to be functioning in this
way that is separate fromhumans, because humans are
adulterating those ecosystems,but we're part of the
(19:14):
ecosystems, and so we reallyneed to be thinking about land
management and policy anddecision making moving forward
in the future that is reallyintegrating that human
ecological relationship andmaking it on the forefront of
how we're making decisions.
Sudeep Chandra (19:29):
The exciting thing about science today is
that Ecological Sciences andNatural Sciences is basically we
are doing science like we'venever done it before. There is
more. I'm a pretty upbeat personon science and and humans in
society more than 100 years ago,when you look at the literature
100 years ago, from ecology, wewere just studying ecology and
(19:51):
ecosystems. But today, we havesuch opportunities with agencies
that want the information, orsocieties that want the
information on science and so Ithink this integration is a
great time. What you're justpointing out is a great time for
us as scientists to be fullyimmersed into wanting to use our
information to make betterpolicy and improve our society.
(20:13):
So I'm pretty actually hopeful.
I know fire is a challengingsubject, and so is climate and
drought, but there are also manyopportunities out there, and
scientists and engineers canguide this way forward, if we
cross our boundaries, and if oursociety and community is willing
to listen to the information.
Christina Restaino (20:32):
Absolutely, and if we allow room for
innovation in technology andengineering and these, you know,
more material sciences, if youwill, to help us come up with
adaptive solutions. And I thinkthat, you know, it's really that
interdisciplinary,transdisciplinary, any kind of
(20:54):
term you want to use for it,where we're, you know, working
across different boundaries inscience, in society, to really
kind of co-produce these toolsand knowledge sets that that we
can use to solve problems.
Megan Kay (21:12):
Thank you for listening to the Living with
Fire Podcast. You can find morestories and resources about
wildfire at our website,livingwithfire.com the Living
with Fire Program is funded bythe Bureau of Land Management,
the Nevada Division of Forestryand the US Forest Service, and
were managed by the Universityof Nevada, Reno extension, an
equal opportunity institution.
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