POCATELLO – Researchers at Idaho State University, Boise State University and NASA are teaming up to try to determine the economic and social impacts of a wildfire recovery geographic information systems (GIS) program, thanks to a $100,000 grant from the NASA Applied Science Program.
ce 2011, ISU and NASA have worked on the Rehabilitation Capability Convergence for Ecosystem Recover (RECOVER) project to rapidly plan the recovery of landscapes following wildfires. RECOVER has been used to analyze dozens of wildfires in Idaho, Oregon, California and other western locations.
Using RECOVER, it takes just five minutes for land managers to produce a detailed, GIS-based web map and reports that provide the information needed to plan for the recovery of a wildfire. This information previously took days to compile.
The economic and social benefits of the NASA RECOVER program are being analyzed in a study that includes principal investigator Keith Weber, director of the ISU GIS Training and Research Center; along with co-principal investigators Eric Lindquist, director of the Boise State University Public Policy Research Center; John Schnase, senior computer scientist in NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Computational and Information Sciences and Technology Office;and Tesa Stegner, ISU economics professor. A student assistant also will join the team when they begin their work this fall.
Some parts of the study will be more subjective than others. For example, Weber said by employing the RECOVER program, land managers may be able to rehabilitate wildlife habitat more rapidly, reduce erosion and prevent costly debris flows such as mudslides and landslides.
More information on the RECOVER program is located online at http://giscenter.isu.edu/Research/Techpg/nasa_RECOVER/index.htm or https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2016/ee_3.html.