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Welcome to our Colorado Forest Restoration Institute (CFRI) Demystifying Data podcast where we break down the lingo, pull back the curtain, and share the CFRI secret sauce on developing science informed, locally relevant solutions with and for our partners.

Denver Water and the US Forest Service spent over $60 million on forest management to protect Denver’s water supply. Did it work? The answer to this question is a little more complicated and of course, it depends. On the surface the cost-benefit analysis doesn’t add up, but recent research shows you don’t have to search far before it starts to look like a bargain. A new study from CFRI with lead author Kelly Jones, a professor at Colorado State University, shows us how it depends. The results were published in the Journal of Forest Policy and Economics in a paper titled “Societal benefits from wildfire mitigation activities through payments for watershed services: Insights from Colorado”.

In this episode we dive into the connections between forests and water, break down the technical modeling used to understand these relationships, and explore the important takeaways from this work.