Post-fire erosion and sediment yield in a Mediterranean forest catchment
in Italy
Abstract
Wildfires are an increasingly alarming phenomenon that affects forests
and agro-ecosystems, generating several cascade effects among which soil
erosion is one of the most deleterious. A robust body of data-based
evidence on post-fire soil erosion and sediment yield at watershed scale
is thus required, especially dealing with areas where wildfires are
particularly frequent, such as the Mediterranean Basin. This study
analyses the impact of the first rains after a large wildfire in terms
of soil erosion and sediment yield at watershed scale in a Mediterranean
area, the Pisan Mountains, Central Italy. Here about 1,000 ha of olive
groves, maquis, maritime pine and chestnut forests burned. Fire severity
was mapped by remote sensing and checked by a field survey. Sediment
yield was assessed by sampling the earthy material deposited upstream a
check dam at the outlet of the watershed. Finally, a hydrological model
was developed in HEC-HMS environment for exploring the relationship
between the erosion-deposition events observed in the watershed and the
rainfall-induced hydrological processes. The first two post-fire rainy
events relocated a high amount of sediments, mostly non-organic, perhaps
already in the stream before the fire, while the subsequent four rains
deposited materials rich in pyrogenic organic matter. Overall, the soil
erosion caused by such six main post-fire rains – the larger of which
had a return time of one year – was estimated to amount to 7.85 t ha
-1, corresponding to 42% of the watershed average
annual potential erosion rate in normal conditions. This value is lower
than expected and, overall, moderate if compared to other Mediterranean
case studies, possibly because of the nature of soils in the studied
watershed, i.e. shallow and quite stony, thus poor in fines prone to
erosion.