Environment
What Will California Do With Millions of Dead Trees?
As a result of the drought, the state has a major infrastructure risk on its hands.
Due to drought, bark beetles, and devastating forest fires, at least 12 million California trees are dead, according to the U.S. Forest Service. That’s a conservative estimate, though; Gregory Asner of Stanford University recently concluded that roughly 120 million—about 20 percent of the state's forests—are doomed, even with a mighty El Niño.
A major question now is how to remove the trees that pose the highest risk to humans.