Wildfire, Water Quality, and Invasive Species

Elise DeArment

Elise has been investigating the impact of wildfires on stream water quality since 2019. After the Woolsey fire of 2018 that impacted a large portion of the streams in the Santa Monica Mountains, she began investigating how water quality changed post-fire. She has focused on how changes in pH, dissolved potassium, and a variety of other factors impact the behavior of the invasive red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii). She is currently compiling findings from her last several years of research into an honors thesis which will be presented in the spring of 2022.