CHAPARRAL

Where is Chaparral?

Area’s of Chaparral in California(in acres)

San Diego                 1,003,441Los Angeles              553,789Riverside                  499,160Santa Barbara          440,645San Luis Obispo        417,718Monterey                  369,345Ventura              326,447San Bernardino         276,010San Benito                246,623Santa Clara               188,427Orange                      111,550Marin                        37,566San Mateo                36,152Santa Cruz                32,328

• Chaparral is a shrub-land plant community found primarily in California and in the northern portions of Mexico.

CHAPARRAL

What are characteristics of chaparral shrubs?

• Sclerophyllous (hard-leaved) plants commonly form the foundation of this plant community. They have small, hard leaves,

that roll up, under, or fall off during the normal summer drought

CHAPARRAL

CHAPARRAL

• Fire is a major factor in the dynamics of this Chaparral plant community, and plants are adapted to fire ie. crown-sprouting

shrubs, and annual fire-followers

CHAPARRAL

Fire Followers

• Normal fire frequency should be about 100-400 years, depending on the Chaparral type and location.

• The presence of weeds, and human carelessness has increased the fire frequency to as little as six months

CHAPARRAL

CHAPARRAL

• Some people feel that we should remove Chaparral in urban interface areas

What would happen if we did?

• If you remove Chaparral, grass and weeds will grow

• Weedy fields burn faster than you can drive. By the time you figure out a grassy area is burning, you could be in danger

• There is almost no erosion in clean Chaparral;

• there are large mud slides in areas of Chaparral that have been converted to grass.

• Removing brush would lead to enormous erosion problems.

What would happen if we did?

Chaparral usually covers the rocks but when it rains like January

2006, the chaparral

slides away and the

geology is exposed…rock

slides! Topanga Canyon 1/9/06

Results of erosion

Fires benefit the Chaparral

• Burns release valuable nutrients into the soils.

• Fire can replace old growth with younger plants that will continue to release nutrients into the soil.

• The chaparral does not “need” fire to survive however, as some areas of old growth are thriving today..