4.5 Limitations
Finally, we note that study design strongly influences the results of meta-analyses, including site selection and geographic extent (Hampton et al., 2022; Raoelison et al., 2023; Rust et al., 2018). The use of a pseudo yield metric in our study to calculate the effect of wildfire on in-stream solute concentrations by incorporating watershed areas of burned and unburned watersheds was required as hydrologic information was largely lacking from published studies. Further, recent cautions on study designs highlighted by Richardson et al. (2024) indicate the importance of reference-burn pairs controlling for watershed size and catchment characteristics, which may result in drastically different conclusions about the impact of wildfires on stream chemistry based on comparisons with just concentrations alone. Additionally, global systems largely affected by fires such as South America and Africa are not well represented in the literature and are largely absent from existing meta-analyses on water quality impacts of wildfires (e.g., Hampton et al., 2022; Raoelison et al., 2023; Rust et al., 2018). As fires become more frequent and more severe in many biomes globally, further understanding of the mechanisms contributing to fire effects representing all fire-prone ecosystems is necessary to better predict the cumulative biogeochemical effects of wildfires on aquatic ecosystems.