May 2020

Are There More Multiyear Snow Droughts in Our Future?

By Adrienne Marshall As an environmental scientist, I’ve done plenty of hiking in the western U.S., always with a map, water bottle and list of water sources. In dry areas it’s always smart to ration water until you get to a new source. Sometimes a stream has dried up for the season, or a pond is […]

Hiker in a high elevation area, with a small lake and ridges with patchy snow in the background

A New Method for Measuring Plant Available Water Capacity Helps Document Benefits of Biochar-Soil Mixtures

By Karen Hills This is part of a series highlighting work by Washington State University (WSU) researchers through the Waste to Fuels Technology Partnership between the Department of Ecology and WSU during the 2017-2019 biennium. Biochar has potential to draw down atmospheric carbon when applied to agricultural soils (as discussed in my previous article on this topic). […]

Five panels showing equipment, from small tubes to psychrometers.

Check it out: New Studies in the Region Discuss Wildfires in the Future and How Fuel Treatments May Affect Them

By Sonia A. Hall Pacific Northwesterners, especially those of us living and breathing in the inland Northwest, expect wildfires every summer. It’s not about if, but about when, where, and how severe they will be, both in forest and rangeland landscapes. As with many other aspects of natural resource management, climate change continues to add […]

Fire burning up a shrub steppe slope, with a conifer tree in the foreground