View the Published Paper: (Link available in September 2025)
Author: James V. Benes
Co-Authors: Paul R. Hanson and Sherilyn C. Fritz
Link to Article about James Benes' related UCARE Project
Overview:
Fire is an elemental force, and the occurrence of wildfires is governed largely by environmental factors but also influenced, both directly and indirectly, by human activity, in some cases purposefully and in others by accident. The connections among human activity, fire, and drought are examined in this study of historic records and sediment cores collected from six lakes within the Nebraska Sand Hills.
We use microscopic charcoal particles from lake sediment cores to reconstruct fire history from ~1800 to 1950 C.E. We also use historical documents and the dates of post office establishment to constrain Euro-American settlement patterns in the regions adjacent to the cored lakes and compare the fire histories with the historic record of regional droughts to understand the connections between environmental conditions and land-use change associated with Euro-American settlement.
Figure 1 Above: Shown in yellow are the eolian dunes in Nebraska which includes the Nebraska Sandhills and the smaller dune fields in the state. Also shown are the study sites (black stars) the National Wildlife Refuges (orange) and the larger towns that are nearby the sites (red circles).
Figure 3 Above: Charcoal Accumulation Rates (CHAR) of paired lake sites from this study arranged from west to east. Westernmost sites are Hackberry and Island Lakes and easternmost are Dewey and West Long Lakes. Vertical gray bands denote the approximate timing of the Euro-American Settlement (1880 – 1910 C.E.) period.