Model linkage to assess forest disturbance impacts on water quality: A wildfire case study using LANDIS(II)-VELMA.

Wildfires in western US forests increased over the last two decades, resulting in elevated solid and nutrient loadings to streams, and occasionally threatening drinking water supplies. We demonstrated that a linked LANDIS (LANDscape DIsturbance and Succession)-VELMA (Visualizing Ecosystem Land Management Assessments) modeling approach can simulate wildland fire effects on water quality using the 2002 Colorado Hayman Fire. Utilizing LANDIS-II's forest landscape model to simulate forest composition and VELMA's eco-hydrologic model to simulate pre- and post-fire water quantity and quality, the best calibration performance yielded a Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) of 0.