Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** after wildfire, burned hillslopes…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** after wildfire, burned hillslopes are left in a precarious and often unstable state. However, without sufficient monitoring on site, the timeframe for which site conditions are predisposed to erosion and landslides is largely unknown. The proposed burned area monitoring system (bams) will monitor soil state using passive wireless tracers in combination with smart wireless interrogation to collect data on soil displacement, soil temperature, and soil moisture. These data will support development and validation of models for assessing post-wildfire landslide or debris flow potential of burnt landscapes in temperate climates. As tracers move downslope with the soil and can be expected to become buried and unburied. In the former case, the tracers provide an opportunity to garner soil temperature and moisture data in addition to soil displacement information. Bams is a highly asymmetric design where energy and costs are concentrated with a small number of interrogators serving a deployment site. This design allows the system to adapt dynamically, through machine learning, to changing spatial and temporal sensing needs. Not only does this allow the passive wireless tracers to be low-cost, but their simplistic functionality enables a significant advancement in in situ monitoring in that these devices will be biodegradable, leaving only trace inert elements (i.e., silicon, silver) in the environment.