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Access to high-quality water will be a defining feature of the 21st century. Record heat waves and drought are not only leading to more frequent and intense wildfires but are also putting one of life’s most valuable resources at risk: the water we drink.

A new Forest Service research report describes how extensively public drinking water systems rely on national forests and grasslands.

Water use per person has been declining for decades; however, a variety of factors such as population growth, food production and ecosystem conditions under a changing climate are contributing to overall greater demand for water – especially in certain parts of the country.

In the West, national forests and grasslands supply drinking water to almost 90% of the people served by public water systems. Some western cities, like Aspen, Colorado, and Portland, Oregon, are more than 90% dependent on national forests alone for their drinking water. The story is similar in the eastern U.S., though most of this water is supplied by private forests.

Still, more than a century of research has demonstrated that forested lands provide the cleanest and most stable water supply compared to other lands. Within the lower 48 states, more than 99% of people who rely on public drinking water receive some from forested lands.

This report is the first of its kind to measure how individual national forests and grasslands contribute to surface drinking water supplies while accounting for networks of pipelines and canals that divert water from the source to areas of high need, also known as “inter-basin water transfers.”

These inter-basin transfers are incredibly important sources of drinking water, especially in the West, where cities like Los Angeles receive more than two-thirds of their water from forested lands in California and Colorado.

By showing where our drinking water comes from at a fine scale, this report supports USDA’s Wildfire Crisis Strategy, and work supported by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. It helps land managers prioritize forests and watersheds for hazardous fuels reduction, watershed management, and restoration treatments that protect people, communities and resources across the country.

A tremendously important report with very timely research findings that need to be heeded. Thank you.

In light of climate change and the resultant trend of more frequent and long-running catastrophic megafires destroying these precious watersheds, there's all the more reason to adopt a zero tolerance approach to all new fires in order to prevent any wildfire development.

To do this, imo, switch from the traditional 20th Century fire-fighting model that is mostly ground-based. It's now unsuited to the conditions with response sometimes too slow and water volume (and delivery flow rate) inadequate to prevent a fire from developing during extreme fire weather periods. The best and safest strategy now is to adapt to the 21st Century climate-changed conditions. Adopt a more preventative, predominant, aerial-based response model to deliver a much faster, aggressively suppressive attack to all new fires at their much earlier, weaker stage of fire development. Ground crews are still needed, and should still respond, for the purposes of immediate follow-up to black out any remaining hot-spots. (Use infra-red - hand held or guided by aerial spotter - to ensure the fire is completely extinguished).

California has been using the aerial Quick Reaction Force (QRF) for a few years now, and the QRF has also been shared in other jurisdictions to help - albeit mostly inefficiently used for large ongoing campaign fires. However, QRF can do far more than just bring big waterbombing loads to well-established, uncontrollable wildfires. This is not what QRF was primarily developed for and doesn't use it to its maximum potential and benefit.

QRF is equipped (and pilots trained) to operate at night and is therefore capable of 24/7 rapid initial attack using 2x chinooks (accompanied by one spotter) with 11,000 litres each to prevent fire development. Retardant, if appropriate, can also be used in the drops (including during the night). Furthermore, the helitankers can be rapidly refilled, without landing, from open water bodies or tanks - and at night. Hence, the QRF model is capable all up of bringing, 24/7, a much larger volume of continuous waterbombing in very quick response time to the embryonic wildfire.

I only wish that the out-dated culture and inflexible strategic thinking of fire managers would get out of the way. Climate change has altered the whole game. We urgently need to adapt to regain advantage in firefighting. We already have a technological solution to help prevent wildfires and protect our precious watersheds. We only need governments and fire authorities willing to invest and use it optimally in the way it was originally conceived and designed - as the primary 1st response to all fires.