Estimating Soil Erosion Rate Changes in Areas Affected by Wildfires

Depountis, Nikolaos; Michalopoulou, Maria; Kavoura, Katerina; Nikolakopoulos, Konstantinos G.; Sabatakakis, N.

doi:10.3390/ijgi9100562

Cited by 23 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 34 publications

(45 reference statements)

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“…The Northern burned zone is mainly characterized by agricultural, hilly areas of smooth relief and altitudes up to 800 m, while the Southern has more mountainous and forest terrain, with altitudes up to 1335 m and steeper slopes. The rate of increase in the soil erosion rate on the Northern part of the study area immediately after the wildfire event was found to be equal to 36.2%, with the percentage reducing to 31% after a decade [62]. This is an important circumstance for the study area since soil erosion accelerates landslide occurrence, especially when rainfall infiltrates eroded areas.…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 89%

Preliminary Forecasting of Rainfall-Induced Shallow Landslides in the Wildfire Burned Areas of Western Greece

Lainas

Depountis

Sabatakakis

2021

Land

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A new methodology for shallow landslide forecasting in wildfire burned areas is proposed by estimating the annual probability of rainfall threshold exceedance. For this purpose, extensive geological fieldwork was carried out in 122 landslides, which have been periodically activated in Western Greece, after the devastating wildfires that occurred in August 2007 and burned large areas in several parts of Western Greece. In addition, daily rainfall data covering more than 40 years has been collected and statistically processed to estimate the exceedance probability of the rainfall threshold above which these landslides are activated. The objectives of this study are to quantify the magnitude and duration of rainfall above which landslides in burned areas are activated, as well as to introduce a novel methodology on rainfall-induced landslide forecasting. It has been concluded that rainfall-induced landslide annual exceedance probability in the burned areas is higher when cumulative rainfall duration ranges from 6 to 9 days with local differences due to the prevailing geological conditions and landscape characteristics. The proposed methodology can be used as a basis for landslide forecasting in wildfire-affected areas, especially when triggered by rainfall, and can be further developed as a tool for preliminary landslide hazard assessment.

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Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 89%

Preliminary Forecasting of Rainfall-Induced Shallow Landslides in the Wildfire Burned Areas of Western Greece

Lainas

Depountis

Sabatakakis

2021

Land

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“…In other countries, such as the Mediterranean ones, despite an increasing number of hazardous events (Parise and Cannon 2008;Tiranti et al 2006;Carabella et al 2019;Esposito et al 2013Esposito et al , 2017Esposito et al , 2019, no model for the hydro-geomorphic events susceptibility assessment has been implemented or validated extensively. Very few examples of model application can be found in Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain (Terranova et al 2009;Fernandez et al 2010Fernandez et al , 2018Coschignano et al 2019;Esteves et al 2013Rulli et al 2013Lanorte et al 2019;Depountis 2020, Efthimiou 2020. The need to quantify the influence of fires on the propensity for hazardous processes clashes with the fact that, in many regions outside the United States, the scientific community has faced the problem in a consistent way only in recent years and thus the available post-fire event statistics does not allow for a data driven approach.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping Post-fire Monthly Erosion Rates at the Catchment Scale Using Empirical Models Implemented in GIS. A Case Study in Northern Italy

Vacha

Mandrone

Morresi

et al. 2023

Progress in Landslide Research and Technology, Volume 1 Issue 1, 2022

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Post-wildfire geological hazards are an emerging problem for a number of different environments, including areas not typically associated with these events such as the Alpine Region. The risk connected with post-fire processes such as debris-flows and flood-type events threatens people, infrastructures, services and economical activities. Apart from a few examples, such as in the USA and Australia, there is a lack of models available to quantify the increase in susceptibility of the aforementioned phenomena as a result of the modification induced by the wildfires. In this work we test the application of a modified version of the RUSLE, on GIS, to quantify the post-fire erosive phenomena for a case study in the north-western Italian Alps. The results of its application, taking advantage of high-resolution rainfall series and data deriving from field surveys, highlight the marked increase (more than 20 times) in erosion rates, quantified by expressing both the EI (erodibility index), the A (monthly soil loss) and the SL (monthly sediment loss) rise. The months of April, May and June represent the larger share of the total quantities. This is a consequence of the noticeable increase of the EI, which for the post-fire scenario is more than one order of magnitude higher than the pre-fire one.

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“…Soil erosion rates in the Mediterranean region are expected to accelerate because of the frequent appearance of intense rainfall episodes, which contribute to the intensification of the erosion process and, therefore, the watersheds' degradation [3,4]. Significant environmental consequences of soil erosion include water quality deterioration, soil degradation, floods and land disasters [5], as well as increased sediment generation, transportation and deposition in natural lakes and water reservoirs [6][7][8]. In the natural environment, the balance of soil loss is achieved by soil regeneration through rock weathering and pedogenesis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pre/Post-Fire Soil Erosion and Evaluation of Check-Dams Effectiveness in Mediterranean Suburban Catchments Based on Field Measurements and Modeling

Margiorou

Kastridis

Sapountzis

2022

Land

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The present study was conducted in the suburban forest of Thessaloniki city (Seich Sou), which constitutes one of the most significant suburban forests in Greece. In 1997, more than the half of the forest area was destroyed by a wildfire, after which soil erosion and flood control works (check-dams) were constructed in the burned areas. The aim of the study is to estimate the annual soil erosion rate for the last 30 years (pre- and post-fire periods) applying the WaTEM/SEDEM model, in order to investigate the impact of this wildfire on soil erosion, the effectiveness of the flood- and erosion-control works and the level of forest regeneration. It is the first time that WaTEM/SEDEM was calibrated and validated in Greece, taking into account soil erosion records from the 18 check-dams that were constructed in the study area in 2001. The mean annual erosion rate was 0.0419 t/ha/year, 0.998 t/ha/year and 0.08 t/ha/year for the pre-fire period, the first 3 years and 20 years after the fire, respectively. The results showed a very low erosion rate for the pre-fire period, an expected significant increase 3 years after the wildfire and a gradual decrease in the subsequent years until 2021. However, it seems that the post-fire regeneration of the forest has not been fully achieved, since the annual soil erosion rate at the long-term post-fire period is double compared with the pre-fire period. Concerning the check-dams’ effectiveness, it was observed that after 20 years of operation, they were non-silted, and most of them retained a small amount of sediments. This fact could be attributed to multiple factors such as the very thin soil depth, fire severity and catchment geomorphology, though the main reason seems to be the time elapsed between fire occurrence and the check-dams’ construction. The results of this study advance/strengthen the knowledge concerning the pre/post-fire soil erosion processes in already degraded ecosystems, while the calibrated model could serve as a useful tool able to be applied in other Mediterranean catchments of similar characteristics.

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Estimating Soil Erosion Rate Changes in Areas Affected by Wildfires

Cited by 23 publications

References 34 publications

Preliminary Forecasting of Rainfall-Induced Shallow Landslides in the Wildfire Burned Areas of Western Greece

Preliminary Forecasting of Rainfall-Induced Shallow Landslides in the Wildfire Burned Areas of Western Greece

Mapping Post-fire Monthly Erosion Rates at the Catchment Scale Using Empirical Models Implemented in GIS. A Case Study in Northern Italy

Pre/Post-Fire Soil Erosion and Evaluation of Check-Dams Effectiveness in Mediterranean Suburban Catchments Based on Field Measurements and Modeling

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