Comparing the effectiveness of seeding and mulching+seeding in reducing soil erosion after a high severity fire in Galicia (NW Spain)

Vega, José A.; Fernández, Cristina; Fontúrbel, Teresa

doi:10.1016/j.ecoleng.2014.10.019

Cited by 52 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Other treatment schemes were still found effective in laboratory settings but need to be validated in field conditions. Vega et al (2015) found that herbaceous seeding was not appropriate for increase postfire ground cover, and resulted in no reduction of soil erosion. Some critical spots inside the degraded area are also susceptible to be selected and treated, while the rest of the affected area remains untreated (for example, the bottom part of convergent long hillslopes or intersections of roads and waterlines) but these approaches were not tested in real scenarios.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Post‐fire soil erosion mitigation at the scale of swales using forest logging residues at a reduced application rate

Prats

González-Pelayo

Silva

et al. 2019

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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Mulching with forest residues has proved to be highly effective in reducing post‐fire soil losses at the plot scale. However, its effectiveness has not been quantified at the application rates that are typically used in operational post‐fire land management (2–3 Mg ha‐1 using straw), as well as at scales larger than 100 m2. The present study compared post‐fire erosion rates for six convergent hillslopes or swales of 500 to 800 m2, three of which were left untreated while the other three were mulched immediately after the fire with shredded eucalypt bark at a rate of 2.4 Mg ha‐1. Erosion rates were monitored at irregular intervals during the first three post‐fire years, whilst ground cover was assessed yearly. Selected topsoil properties (0–2 cm) such as organic matter content and aggregate stability were determined at a single occasion – two years after the wildfire, for three micro‐environments separately: bare soil, and under mulch/litter and vegetation. Soil losses on the untreated swales decreased with post‐fire year from 2.2 to 0.4 and 0.11 Mg ha‐1 yr‐1 (respectively for the first, second and third post‐fire years), while the mulched swales produced 84%, 77% and 38% less soil losses than the untreated swales. Soil losses also depended on slope aspect, with the north‐facing swales producing less erosion than the west‐facing ones. This could be linked to their significant differences in bare soil, vegetation and stone cover, or a combination thereof. The type of micro‐environment also played a significant role in topsoil properties (stone content, bulk density, resistance to penetration/shear stress, porosity and organic matter content). The present results add to the increasing evidence that forest residues should be duly considered for operational post‐fire land management. Forest residues were highly effective in reducing erosion from swales at application rates as low as the typical 2 Mg ha‐1 of post‐fire straw mulch. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Post‐fire soil erosion mitigation at the scale of swales using forest logging residues at a reduced application rate

Prats

González-Pelayo

Silva

et al. 2019

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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“…For Prats et al (2013) hydromulching was highly effective during the first 19 months after its application, reducing total runoff volumes by 70% and total soil losses by 83%, and continued effectively during the third year following the wildfire. And for Vega et al (2015) mulching with seeding was clearly much more efficient that seeding alone in terms of minimizing soil erosion.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, certain studies have noted contrasting behavior by burned soil in studies with high prefire variability in soil loss and rainfall between the burned and the reference or control plots (Cerdà and Lasanta, 2005). In addition to the high spatial and temporal variability of soil loss in Mediterranean ecosystems because of erratic rains, the following factors may also influence these contrasting behaviors of burned areas: the soil rockiness (Cerdà and Navarro, 1997a,b;Rubio et al, 1997); fire intensity and severity (Neary et al, 1999;Shakesby, 2011), and their recurrence (Gimeno et al, 2000); the postfire management, particularly as affected by ploughing (Edeso et al, 1998;Malvar et al, 2011Malvar et al, , 2013; and the measures taken to control the subsequent erosion (Bautista et al, 1996), such as the application of straw mulch (Fernández and Vega, 2014;Robichaud et al, 2014), seeding or mulching (Badía and Martí, 2000;Vega et al, 2015) or other applications for soil conservation and erosion control (Abad et al, 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of different methods to measure soil erosion in the Central Ebro Valley

León

Badía

Echeverría

2015

CIG

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“…Por tanto, resulta necesario ampliarla para que sea operativa, siendo imprescindible obtener unos rangos de esos índices de cara a la evaluación y caracterización de la severidad de los incendios. Además, actualmente está en marcha un programa de rehabilitación de áreas quemadas en Galicia y resulta crítico contar con herramientas operativas que ayuden a una rápida priorización de las zonas objeto de tratamientos de minimización de los riesgos hidrológico-erosivos asociados a los incendios (Vega et al, 2013(Vega et al, , 2015.…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

Validación de los índices de teledetección dNBR y RdNBR para determinar la severidad del fuego en el incendio forestal de Oia-O Rosal (Pontevedra) en 2013

Arellano

Vega²,

Silva³

et al. 2017

Rev. Teledetec.

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<p>Fire severity evaluation and mapping following wildfire is an essential task for post-fire rehabilitation activities and forest management planning. For that purpose, some spectral indexes are used to quantify the changes caused by fire, being Landsat satellite one of the most frequently used. Even though Galicia is the Spanish region with the highest number of fires in the country, the information on fire severity estimation through satellite imagery is scarce. In the present study, the capacity of dNBR (differenced Normalized Burn Ratio) and RdNBR (Relative difference Normalized Burn Ratio), through Landsat 8 imagery processing, are compared for the first time in Galicia to test both indexes with field data following the methodology from CBI (Composite Burn Index) in Oia-O Rosal (Pontevedra) wildfire occurred in the summer of 2013. The results indicate that the models for dNBR and RdNBR estimation according to CBI were similar, explaining a 69 and 73% of variability, respectively. These models allow to obtain a new fire severity thresholds for dNBR and RdNBR for the burned area. Although, both indexes showed a similar and quite high overall accuracy in the classification of the different fire severity classes (75% y 83% for dNBR and RdNBR, respectively), RdNBR was slightly more accurate than dNBR. Additionally, the dNBR-based fire severity map significantly underestimated the high fire severity area, compared with RdNBR. Those preliminary results can be useful to evaluate fire severity spatial distribution, in wildfires in Galicia although new data will be necessary before an operational tool to be available.</p>

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Comparing the effectiveness of seeding and mulching+seeding in reducing soil erosion after a high severity fire in Galicia (NW Spain)

Cited by 52 publications

References 45 publications

Post‐fire soil erosion mitigation at the scale of swales using forest logging residues at a reduced application rate

Post‐fire soil erosion mitigation at the scale of swales using forest logging residues at a reduced application rate

Comparison of different methods to measure soil erosion in the Central Ebro Valley

Validación de los índices de teledetección dNBR y RdNBR para determinar la severidad del fuego en el incendio forestal de Oia-O Rosal (Pontevedra) en 2013

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