Severe drought, wildfires threaten water resources

Zulima Palacio in Voice of America: Scientists say severe, prolonged drought and soaring temperatures were major factors in the wildfires that destroyed thousands of hectares of forest and woodlands in the western United States last year. They predict those conditions might continue to threaten both the region's forests and its scarce water resources.

Now a team of scientists in New Mexico's Valles Caldera National Preserve is trying to restore the damaged forest land. They're also trying to find ways to conserve water in a region that climate change is making increasingly dry.

This is Valles Caldera. Actually, it's the giant mouth of a dormant super volcano that last erupted 40,000 years ago. In the millennia since then, the terrain developed high-elevation forests, of abundant water sources and a rich ecosystem. Today it's a national preserve. But last year, over 32,000 hectares of forest in Valles Caldera, as well as in several other states of the American southwest, were consumed by the worst wild fires in a century.

"This burned 43,000 acres [17,000 hectares] in 14 hours. To give you a kind of visual on that, a football field with both end zones and bench areas, burns in 2 seconds," noted Bob Parmenter, chief scientist at Valles Caldera National Preserve.

Parmenter says there are several reasons for that kind of fire: shorter winters with less snow pack along the Rocky Mountains, where many rivers in the American west originate, as well as longer and warmer summers with less rain.

David Brown, a regional climate director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), says drought is putting heavy stress on water resources. "One of the most severe droughts in the last 100 years is playing out right now in the southwest," said Brown....