Impact of wildfires on surface water repellency in soils of northwest Spain

Varela, M.; Benito, E.; Blas, E. de

doi:10.1002/hyp.5850

Cited by 80 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 29 publications

(38 reference statements)

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“…Figure 5 compares the ethanol classes of the recently burned soils at the two sampling depths (0-2 and 2-5 cm) with those of the neighbouring unburned soils at the top 5 cm. These results were already analysed in detail in a prior work (Varela et al, 2005), and, in a nutshell, indicate that fire induces repellency in soils that are wettable, increases repellency severity in soils that are slightly to moderately repellent and leaves it basically unaltered in soil that are strongly or very strongly repellent. Soils 8, 19 and 23 are an exception to the latter in the sense that they suffer a decrease from (very) strong to moderate severity at the upper sampling depth however, these three soils exhibited strong to very strong water repellency in the 2-5 cm layer.…”

Section: Soil Aggregationsupporting

confidence: 57%

Wildfire effects on soil erodibility of woodlands in NW Spain

2009

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Knowledge of soil erodibility following wildfire is of crucial importance for prioritisation of post-fire restoration practices for soil erosion mitigation. The present work therefore aims to determine the effect of wildfire on soil erodibility for common woodlands in Galicia, NW Spain. This is done by comparing selected topsoil properties of 28 pairs of recently wildfire-burned and neighbouring unburned sites on different geologic substrates. The soil properties were selected for their supposed importance in erodibility, and include aggregate size distribution and water aggregate stability. Comparison of the burned and unburned sites suggested that wildfire had a noticeable negative effect on aggregate size distribution but not on particle size distribution. The effect on aggregate stability was highly variable. Aggregate stability was clearly lower at the burned than unburned site in about a third of the cases and in the remaining cases either basically the same at both sites or higher at the unburned site. The differences in aggregate stability, like those in aggregate size distribution, appear to be associated with changes in organic carbon content. The impact of wildfire on soil erodibility is supposed to operate through its effect on soil organic matter and, thus, to depend strongly on fire severity. Soil erodibility is then little affected by low-severity wildfires but markedly diminished following high-severity wildfires. All burned topsoils were strongly to very strongly water repellent. Fire-enhaced repellency is therefore viewed as a key factor in the post-fire runoff and erosion processes repeatedly observed in recently burned areas in NW Spain.

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Section: Soil Aggregationsupporting

confidence: 57%

Wildfire effects on soil erodibility of woodlands in NW Spain

2009

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“…It is assumed that the soil has resumed its normal properties and that any hydrophobic effects induced by the fire (e.g. Sidle et al, 1985;Varela et al, 2005) have disappeared. It is further assumed that potential evapotranspiration, as determined with the Blaney-Criddle equation calibrated by pan evaporation data, remains the same as with the current land use.…”

Section: Scenario Simulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling the impact of forest loss on shallow landslide sediment yield, Ijuez river catchment, Spanish Pyrenees

Bathurst¹,

Moretti²,

El-Hames³

et al. 2007

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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The SHETRAN model for simulating the sediment yield arising from shallow landslides at the scale of a river catchment was applied to the 45-km 2 Ijuez catchment in the central Spanish Pyrenees, to investigate the effect of loss of forest cover on landslide and debris flow incidence and on catchment sediment yield. The application demonstrated how such a model, with a large number of parameters to be evaluated, can be used even when directly measured data are not available: rainfall and discharge time series were generated by reference to other local records and data providing the basis for a soil map were obtained by a short field campaign. Uncertainty bounds for the outputs were determined as a function of the uncertainty in the values of key model parameters. For a four-year period and for the existing forested state of the catchment, a good ability to simulate the observed long term spatial distribution of debris flows (represented by a 45-year inventory) and to determine catchment sediment yield within the range of regional observations was demonstrated. The lower uncertainty bound on simulated landslide occurrence approximated the observed annual rate of landsliding and suggests that landslides provide a relatively minor proportion of the total sediment yield, at least in drier years. A scenario simulation in which the forest cover was replaced by grassland indicated an increase in landsliding but a decrease in the number of landslides which evolve into debris flows and, at least for drier years, a reduction in sediment delivery to the channel network.

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“…alkyl chain length, alkyl chain saturation, ionized molecules). This may explain the inconsistent results on whether or not the amount of soil organic matter (SOM) has an influence on the occurrence or severity of WR (Aelamanesh et al, 2014;Eynard et al, 2006;Hajnos et al, 2013;Mataix-Solera et al, 2013;Mataix-Solera and Doerr, 2004;Mirbabaei et al, 2013;Varela et al, 2005;Vogelmann et al, 2013;Woche et al, 2005) and the findings of pronounced differences in the effects of a range of organic molecules on WR (de Blas et al, 2013;Doerr et al, 2000;Fischer et al, 2013;Simkovic et al, 2008). WR can be assessed by means of the water drop penetration time (WDPT) test (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biological soil crusts cause subcritical water repellency in a sand dune ecosystem located along a rainfall gradient in the NW Negev desert, Israel

Keck¹,

Felde

Drahorad

et al. 2016

Journal of Hydrology and Hydromechanics

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Abstract:The biological soil crusts (BSCs) in the NW Negev cause local water redistribution by increasing surface runoff. The effects of pore clogging and swelling of organic and inorganic crust components were intensively investigated in earlier studies. However, the effect of water repellency (WR) was not addressed systematically yet. This study investigates subcritical WR of BSCs in three different study sites in the NW Negev. For this purpose, three common methods to determine soil WR were used: (i) the repellency index (RI) method (ii) the water drop penetration time (WDPT) test and (iii) the Wilhelmy plate method (WPM). Furthermore, the potential influence of WR on local water redistribution is discussed and the applied methods are compared. We found the BSC to be subcritically water repellent. The degree of WR may only affect water redistribution on a microscale and has little influence on the ecosystem as a whole. The RI method was clearly the most appropriate to use, whereas the WDPT and the WPM failed to detect subcritical WR.

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Impact of wildfires on surface water repellency in soils of northwest Spain

Cited by 80 publications

References 29 publications

Wildfire effects on soil erodibility of woodlands in NW Spain

Wildfire effects on soil erodibility of woodlands in NW Spain

Modelling the impact of forest loss on shallow landslide sediment yield, Ijuez river catchment, Spanish Pyrenees

Biological soil crusts cause subcritical water repellency in a sand dune ecosystem located along a rainfall gradient in the NW Negev desert, Israel

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