Charity Nyelele

Dr. Charity Nyelele

orcid

Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

2Years (2025-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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22 September 2025 in Science of The Total Environment
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
HGHan Guo
Han Guo
MGMichael Goulden
Michael Goulden
MCMin Gon Chung
Min Gon Chung
QXQingqing Xu
Qingqing Xu
CNCharity Nyelele
Charity Nyelele
RBRoger C. Bales
Roger C. Bales
As wildfires in the western United States grow in frequency and severity, forest fuels treatment has been increasingly recognized as essential for enhancing forest resilience and mitigating wildfire risks. However, the economic valuation of the treatment's co-benefits remains underexplored, limiting integration into financial and policy decision making. Using highly forested land in California's Sierra Nevada as study areas, this study provides a methodology to quantify the economic benefits of forest fuels treatment in mitigating wildfire-induced losses across multiple ecosystem services, including carbon storage, timber provisioning, erosion regulation, and air-quality regulation. Integrating historical data on forest disturbances, ecological variables, and market-based ecosystem service valuation models, we demonstrate that treatment can substantially reduce wildfire risk and deliver measurable, significant economic benefits at a landscape level. The magnitude of these benefits is site specific and sensitive to burn probability, treatment intensity, and the baseline value of affected ecosystem services. This quantitative analysis provides a scalable approach to inform regional forest management strategies. It can also support innovative financing mechanisms such as public-private cost-sharing models, which can accelerate the pace and scale of forest fuels treatment efforts that enhance ecosystem sustainability and community resilience in wildfire-vulnerable landscapes.