Changes in connectivity and hydrological efficiency following wildland fires in Sierra Madre Oriental, Mexico

Ortíz-Rodríguez, A.J.; Muñoz-­Robles, Carlos; Borselli, L.

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.11.236

Cited by 32 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…The percent of a watershed that burned at high severity was correlated with increased hillslope‐to‐stream SDRs and greater area‐normalised cross‐sectional change (Table 4). This is consistent with other studies that show increased bare soil after disturbances such as wildfire promotes hillslope erosion (Williams et al, 2016) and connectivity of runoff and sediment from hillslopes to channels (Ortíz‐Rodríquez et al, 2019). For regions with spatially variable, high intensity rainfall (Osborn & Laursen, 1973) such storms can produce localised hillslope erosion (e.g., Figure 4) and subsequent deposition of sediment within channels when the sediment delivered from hillslopes exceeds in‐stream transport capacity.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…Wildfire increases the potential for connectivity of water and sediment across a landscape. Burning combusts organic surface cover creating interconnected areas of bare soil; subsequent rainfall can lead to soil sealing (Larsen et al, 2009) and increased runoff and erosion (Benavides‐Solorio & MacDonald, 2005; Ortíz‐Rodríquez et al, 2019; Wagenbrenner & Robichaud, 2014). Connectivity typically increases after fire because post‐fire runoff and sediment transport can develop with less rainfall (Wilson et al, 2018) and over smaller drainage areas (Wohl, 2013) than in unburned conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Connectivity of post‐fire runoff and sediment from nested hillslopes and watersheds

Wilson

Kampf

Ryan

et al. 2020

Hydrological Processes

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Wildfire increases the potential connectivity of runoff and sediment throughout watersheds due to greater bare soil, runoff and erosion as compared to pre‐fire conditions. This research examines the connectivity of post‐fire runoff and sediment from hillslopes (<1.5 ha; n = 31) and catchments (<1000 ha; n = 10) within two watersheds (<1500 ha) burned by the 2012 High Park Fire in northcentral Colorado, USA. Our objectives were to: (1) identify sources and quantify magnitudes of post‐fire runoff and erosion at nested hillslopes and watersheds for two rain storms with varied duration, intensity and antecedent precipitation; and (2) assess the factors affecting the magnitude and connectivity of runoff and sediment across spatial scales for these two rain storms. The two summer storms that are the focus of this research occurred during the third summer after burning. The first storm had low intensity rainfall over 11 hours (return interval <1–2 years), whereas the second event had high intensity rainfall over 1 hour (return interval <1–10 years). The lower intensity storm was preceded by high antecedent rainfall and led to low hillslope sediment yields and channel incision at most locations, whereas the high intensity storm led to infiltration‐excess overland flow, high sediment yields, in‐stream sediment deposition and channel substrate fining. For both storms, hillslope‐to‐stream sediment delivery ratios and area‐normalised cross‐sectional channel change increased with the percent of catchment that burned at high severity. For the high intensity storm, hillslope‐to‐stream sediment delivery ratios decreased with unconfined channel length (%). The findings quantify post‐fire connectivity and sediment delivery from hillslopes and streams, and highlight how different types of storms can cause varying magnitues and spatial patterns of sediment transport and deposition from hillslopes through stream channel networks.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Connectivity of post‐fire runoff and sediment from nested hillslopes and watersheds

Wilson

Kampf

Ryan

et al. 2020

Hydrological Processes

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“…Most studies using IC to address temporal evolution use either C‐factor, Manning's n , or satellite remote‐sensed indices as impedances to compute IC (Table 1), resulting in a semi‐dynamic connectivity portrait. This can be an issue for two reasons: either only a few dates were used to cover a few decades (e.g., Lizaga et al, 2018; López‐Vicente et al, 2017; Persichillo et al, 2018), giving an incomplete or flawed understanding of the way IC evolved through time, or multiple dates were used to compute IC over a relatively short period of time (Foerster et al, 2014; Ortíz‐Rodríguez et al, 2019), providing a very limited scope and a lack of context to understand the global evolution of the connectivity (Czuba & Foufoula‐Georgiou, 2015). There is thus a real need to increase the temporal resolution so that spatiotemporal trajectories will be revealed (Nicoll & Brierley, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The 10 m pixels of the W rasters were affected with SAC values ranging from 0.001 to 1, according to Figure 3. Following the approach of Ortíz‐Rodríguez et al (2019), and because W must be different from zero, pixels covering undisturbed areas were affected with a W value of 0.001 (Figure 2b,c). Connectivity maps, hereafter called IC HR , were computed annually from 1979 to 2017, with the single 10 m DEM and the associated W rasters, hereafter called W HR (HR referring to the consideration of the HR rates).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While the topography‐based impedance factors generally lead to static connectivity, it has been shown that connectivity can be highly dynamic over time, especially when considering land use/forest cover change (Llena et al, 2019; Moreno‐de‐las‐Heras et al, 2020; Ortíz‐Rodríguez, Muñoz‐Robles, & Borselli, 2019; Poeppl, Keesstra, & Maroulis, 2017). Thus, to best evaluate the effect of forest cover change on connectivity, we implemented a highly dynamic impedance factor in IC computation that was based on HR rates.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Interannual evolution of hydrosedimentary connectivity induced by forest cover change in a snow‐dominated mountainous catchment

2021

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Hydrosedimentary connectivity is a key concept referring to the potential fluxes of water and sediment moving throughout a catchment. In forested catchments, these fluxes are prone to alterations caused by anthropogenic and natural disturbances. In this study, we modelled the interannual spatiotemporal evolution of hydrosedimentary connectivity influenced by forest cover change over the last four decades in the Mont‐Louis catchment, a medium snow‐dominated mountainous catchment in eastern Canada, which had 62% of its total surface affected by forest disturbances (mainly logging, but also wildfires and diseases) between 1979 and 2017. Using a geomorphometric index of connectivity (IC) and a historical forest cover database, we produced one IC map per year that considered anthropogenic and natural disturbances affecting the forest cover of the studied catchment. To account for vegetation recovery, forest disturbances were weighted with local hydrological recovery rates. Over the four decades, the mean IC of the Mont‐Louis catchment dramatically increased by 35% in response to different types of disturbances. The spatial evolution of IC over the whole catchment and at the sub‐catchment scale revealed that disturbance location has a strong influence on hydrosedimentary connectivity to the main channel. Our results also highlight the sharp contrast between IC computed from topography‐based impedance to those computed from vegetation‐based impedance. Forest disturbances appear to connect hillslopes with the hydrological network by producing pathways for sediment and water. Finally, the proposed reproducible framework could be useful for predicting the potential impact of harvesting and preventing damage to fish habitat and sensitive river reaches.

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Hillslope sediment fence catch efficiencies and particle sorting for post‐fire rain storms

Wilson

Kampf

Wagenbrenner

et al. 2020

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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Sediment fences are often used to monitor hillslope erosion, but these can underestimate sediment yields due to overtopping of runoff and associated sediment. We modified four sediment fences to collect and measure the runoff and sediment that overtopped the fence in addition to the sediment deposited behind the fence. Specific objectives were to: (1) determine the catch efficiency of sediment fences measuring post‐fire hillslope erosion; (2) assess particle sorting of sand, silt/clay, and organic matter from each hillslope through the sediment fence and subsequent runoff collection barrels; (3) evaluate how catch efficiency and particle size sorting relate to site and rainfall‐runoff event characteristics; and (4) use runoff simulations to estimate sediment fence volumes for future post‐fire monitoring. Catch efficiency ranged from 28 to 100% for events and 38 to 94% per site for the entire sampling season, indicating a relatively large underestimation of sediment yields by sediment fences. Most of the eroded sediment had similar proportions of sand and silt/clay as the hillslope soils, but the sediment behind the fence was significantly enriched in sand while the sediment that overtopped the fence was more strongly enriched in silt/clay. The sediment fences had capacities of 3 m3 for hillslopes of 0.19–0.43 ha, but simulations of runoff for 2‐ to 100‐year storms indicate that the sediment fences would need a capacity of up to 240 m3 to store all of the runoff and associated sediment. More accurate measurements of sediment yields with sediment fences require either increasing the storage capacity of the sediment fence(s) to accommodate the expected volume of runoff and sediment, reducing the size of the contributing area, or directly measuring the runoff and sediment that overtop the fence. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Changes in connectivity and hydrological efficiency following wildland fires in Sierra Madre Oriental, Mexico

Cited by 32 publications

References 62 publications

Connectivity of post‐fire runoff and sediment from nested hillslopes and watersheds

Connectivity of post‐fire runoff and sediment from nested hillslopes and watersheds

Interannual evolution of hydrosedimentary connectivity induced by forest cover change in a snow‐dominated mountainous catchment

Hillslope sediment fence catch efficiencies and particle sorting for post‐fire rain storms

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