Forests strongly influence snow processes and affect the amount and duration of snow storage on a landscape. Therefore, forest changes, from management activities or natural disturbances, have important consequences for spring and summer soil moisture availability, aquatic habitat, and water supply. Accounting for these effects of forest change on watersheds will become even more important under warming climate conditions, which will reduce the amount and duration of snow storage. 

In this webinar, Susan E. Dickerson-Lange presents on Northwest Climate Science Center supported research that led to the creation of a conceptual model that paired relevant spatial datasets for considering the combined impacts of forest and climate change across the Pacific Northwest, USA. Predicting the effects of forest on snow storage depends on drivers that vary across locations, such as winter temperature, wind speed, cloudiness, and solar radiation. The net result is that management actions, such as timber harvesting, can have unintended effects on snow storage and duration depending on location. 

View the webinar recording to learn more about how to use maps of key climate and physical features across Washington, Oregon, and Idaho to optimize snow storage in forest management decisions. This webinar was presented as part of the Climate Change Science and Management Webinar Series. The series is held in partnership between the USGS National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center and the FWS National Conservation Training Center.