Sponsor
The authors thank Oregon’s interagency government panel on wildfire response for bringing this team together. We also thank eight organizational reviewers for helpful feedback on the draft paper. The USGS Oregon Water Science Center supported JKR and KDC. AMP and PR were supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Environmental System Science (ESS) Program as part of the River Corridor Scientific Focus Area (SFA) project at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is operated by Battelle Memorial Institute for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC05-76RL01830.
Published In
Environmental Research: Water
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-10-2026
Subjects
Wildfire research, Water quality
Abstract
An increase in the occurrence of large, high severity wildfires in the western Pacific Northwest (PNW), USA, has created an urgent need for science to better inform forest management and policy decisions to maintain source water quality in the region. The western PNW faces similar challenges to other regions with shifting wildfire regimes and large population centers reliant on surface water from forested catchments. However, the uniquely wet and highly seasonal climate of the western PNW suggests that findings from other, more frequently burned regions may not be directly applicable. To identify science, monitoring, and management gaps and opportunities in the western PNW, this review was collaboratively undertaken by academics, non-government and industry representatives, and local, state, and federal government entities who have been working together since the 2020 Labor Day fires in Oregon. Focusing on Oregon and Washington, we found that monitoring networks for continuous water quantity and quality cover much of the state with greater representation in western U.S. ecoregions, but few studies have analyzed and published these data to capture and communicate the post-wildfire response. Approximately half of the streamgages in Oregon and Washington record major water quality parameters, and hundreds of sites in the area have discrete sampling for a wide range of water quality constituents. Still, numerous gaps exist in understanding the short- and long-term impacts of wildfire on hydrology, water chemistry, including pH and dissolved oxygen, mobilization of metals, aquatic ecosystems, and downstream drinking water treatment. Collective action to further collect, analyze, interpret, and publish the key data could help improve our understanding of post-wildfire water quality impacts in this and other increasingly wildfire-affected regions.
Rights
Copyright (c) 2026 The Authors
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Locate the Document
10.1088/3033-4942/ae36cb
DOI
10.1088/3033-4942/ae36cb
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/44475
Citation Details
Wall, S., Compton, J. E., Coble, A. A., Haley, B. M., Lin, J., Myers-Pigg, A., Reale, J., Wampler, K., Swartz, A., Moffett, K., Bladon, K. D., Carpenter, K., Chang, H., Chen, J., Donahue, D., Eckley, C. S., Hohner, A. K., Kiffney, P. M., Miralha, L., … River, M. (2026). Post-wildfire water quality and aquatic ecosystem response in the U.S. Pacific Northwest: science and monitoring gaps. Environmental Research: Water, 2(1), 015004.