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Max Alan Moritz

Specialist in Cooperative Extension
Bren School of Environmental Science & Management
2400 Bren Hall
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5131
805-893-8747
mmoritz@ucanr.edu Create VCard

Also in:
Santa Barbara County

Specialty

Fire Ecology and Management; Disturbance Regimes; Spatial Analysis; Fire Policy; Climate Change Adaptation

Areas of Expertise (click to see all ANR academics with this expertise)

Bibliography

Peer Reviewed

  • Moritz, M.A.; Hazard, R., et al. (2022). Beyond a Focus on Fuel Reduction in the WUI: The Need for Regional Wildfire Mitigation to Address Multiple Risks. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change. 5:848254.
  • Ratcliff, F.; Rao, D., et al. (2022). Cattle grazing reduces fuel and leads to more manageable fire behavior. California Agriculture. 76:2, 60-69.
  • McLaughlin, J.P.; Schroeder, J.W., et al. (2022). Food webs for three burn severities after wildfire in the Eldorado National Forest, California. Scientific Data. 9:1, 1-20.
  • Park, I.; Fauss, K., et al. (2022). Forecasting Live Fuel Moisture of Adenostema fasciculatum and Its Relationship to Regional Wildfire Dynamics across Southern California Shrublands. Fire. 5:4, 110.
  • Parkinson, A.M.; D'antonio, C.M., et al. (2022). Influence of Topography, Vegetation, Weather, and Climate on Big-cone Douglas-Fir Fire Refugia and High Fire-Induced Mortality After Two Large Mixed-Severity Wildfires. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change. 5:995537.
  • Post-Leon, A.; Dryak, M., et al. (2022). Integration of landscape-level remote sensing and tree-level ecophysiology reveals drought refugia for a rare endemic, bigcone Douglas-fir. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change. 5:946728.
  • Buchholz, T.; Gunn, J., et al. (2022). Probability-based accounting for carbon in forests to consider wildfire and other stochastic events: Synchronizing science, policy, and carbon offsets. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change. 27:1, 1-21.
  • Juang, C.S.; Williams, A.P., et al. (2022). Rapid Growth of Large Forest Fires Drives the Exponential Response of Annual Forest?Fire Area to Aridity in the Western United States. Geophysical Research Letters. 49:5, e2021GL097131.
  • Boyer, E.W.; Moritz, M.A., et al. (2022). Smoke deposition to water surfaces drives hydrochemical changes. Hydrological Processes. 36:6, e14626.
  • K, Zigner; LMV, Carvalho, et al. (2022). Wildfire Risk in the Complex Terrain of the Santa Barbara Wildland–Urban Interface during Extreme Winds. Fire. 5:5, 138.
  • Ma, W.; Zhai, L., et al. (2021). Assessing climate change impacts on live fuel moisture and wildfire risk using a hydrodynamic vegetation model. Biogeosciences. 18:13, 4005-4020.
  • Chen, B.; Jin, Y., et al. (2021). Climate, fuel, and land use shaped the spatial pattern of wildfire in California’s Sierra Nevada. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences. e2020JG005786.
  • Park, I.W.; Mann, M.L., et al. (2021). Relationships of climate, human activity, and fire history to spatiotemporal variation in annual fire probability across California. PLoS ONE. 16:11, e0254723.
  • Burke, W.; Tague, C.N., et al. (2021). Understanding how fuel treatments interact with climate and biophysical setting to affect fire, water, and forest health: A process-based modeling approach. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change. 3:3591162.
  • Moritz, M.A.; Butsic, V. (2020). Building to Coexist with Fire: Community Risk Reduction Measures for New Development in California. UC ANR Publication 8680.
  • Newman, E. A.; Wilber, M. Q., et al. (2020). Disturbance macroecology: a comparative study of community structure metrics in a high‐severity disturbance regime. Ecosphere. 11:1, e03022.
  • Zigner, K.; Carvalho, L., et al. (2020). Evaluating the ability of FARSITE to simulate wildfires influenced by extreme, downslope winds in Santa Barbara, California. Fire. 3:3, 29.
  • McLauchlan, KK; Higuera, PE, et al. (2020). Fire as a fundamental ecological process. Journal of Ecology. 108:5, 2047-2069.
  • Shapero, M.; Moritz, M. (2020). Preparing for Disaster: Establishing and Ag Pass Program in Your Community. UC ANR Publication 8685.
  • Madakumbura, G.D.; Goulden, M.L., et al. (2020). Recent California tree mortality portends future increase in drought-driven forest die-off. Environmental Research Letters. 15:12, 124040.
  • Holsinger, L.; Parks, S.A., et al. (2019). Climate change likely to reshape vegetation in North America's largest protected areas. Conservation Science and Practice. 1:7, e50. https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/csp2.50
  • Batllori, E.; De Cáceres, M., et al. (2019). Compound fire‐drought regimes promote ecosystem transitions in Mediterranean ecosystems. Journal of Ecology. 107:3, 1187-1198. https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2745.13115
  • Mansuy, N.; Miller, C., et al. (2019). Contrasting human influences and macro-environmental factors on fire activity inside and outside protected areas of North America. Environmental Research Letters. 14:6, 064007. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab1bc5/meta
  • McCullough, I.M.; Cheruvelil, K.S., et al. (2019). Do lakes feel the burn? Ecological consequences of increasing exposure of lakes to fire in the continental United States. Global Change Biology. 25:9, 2841-2854. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcb.14732
  • Buma, B.; Batllori, E., et al. (2019). Emergent freeze and fire disturbance dynamics in temperate rainforests. Austral Ecology. 44:5, 812-826. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/aec.12751
  • Tague, C.L.; Moritz, M.A. (2019). Plant accessible water storage capacity and tree-scale root interactions determine how forest density reductions alter forest water use and productivity. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change. 2, 36. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2019.00036/full
  • Tague, C.L.; Moritz, M., et al. (2019). The changing water cycle: The eco‐hydrologic impacts of forest density reduction in Mediterranean (seasonally dry) regions. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water. 6:4, e1350. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wat2.1350
  • Syphard, A.D.; Rustigian-Romsos, H., et al. (2019). The relative influence of climate and housing development on current and projected future fire patterns and structure loss across three California landscapes. Global Environmental Change. 56, 41-55. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378018313293
  • Moritz, M.A.; Odion, D.C., et al. (2018). Characterizing chaparral fire regimes. Fire in California’s Ecosystems.J. van Wagtendonk, N. Sugihara, S. Stephens, A. Thode and K. Shaffer. UC Press. 72.
  • Williams, A.P.; Gentine, P., et al. (2018). Effect of reduced summer cloud shading on evaporative demand and wildfire in coastal southern California. Geophysical Research Letters. 45:11, 5653-5662. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018GL077319
  • Moritz, M.A.; Batllori, E. (2018). Fire and climate change in mediterranean-type ecosystems. The Biology of Mediterranean-type Ecosystems.K. Esler, A. Jacobsen and R. Pratt. Oxford University Press. 310-312.
  • Gibbons, P.; Gill, A.M., et al. (2018). Options for reducing house-losses during wildfires without clearing trees and shrubs. Landscape and Urban Planning. 174, 10-17. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204618300598
  • Dunham, J.B.; Angermeier, P.L., et al. (2018). Rivers are social–ecological systems: time to integrate human dimensions into riverscape ecology and management. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water. 5:4, e1291. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wat2.1291
  • Anderson, S.E.; Bart, R.R., et al. (2018). The dangers of disaster-driven responses to climate change. Nature Climate Change. 8:8, 651-653. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0208-8

Non-Peer Reviewed

  • Programme, United Nations Environment (2022). Spreading like Wildfire – The Rising Threat of Extraordinary Landscape Fires. A UNEP Rapid Response Assessment.
  • Moritz, M.A.; Topik, C., et al. (2018). A Statement of Common Ground Regarding the Role of Wildfire in Forested Landscapes of the Western United States. Fire Research Consensus Working Group Final Report. https://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/news/fire-scientists-agree-about-wildfire-more-they-realize
  • Kearns, F.; Moritz, M.A. (2018). How fierce fall winds help fuel California fires. The Conversation. 11/18/2018. https://theconversation.com/how-fierce-fall-and-winter-winds-help-fuel-california-fires-106985
  • Moritz, M.A.; Tague, N., et al. (2018). Wildfires are inevitable – increasing home losses, fatalities and costs are not. The Conversation. 11/11/2018. https://theconversation.com/wildfires-are-inevitable-increasing-home-losses-fatalities-and-costs-are-not-101295

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