Influence of burning intensity on water repellency and hydrological processes at forest and shrub sites in Portugal
A. J. D. Ferreira A B E , C. O. A. Coelho A , A. K. Boulet A , G. Leighton-Boyce C , J. J. Keizer A and C. J. Ritsema DA Centro das Zonas Costeiras e do Mar, Department of Environment and Planning, University of Aveiro, P-3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal.
B Centro de Estudos dos Recursos Naturais, Ambiente e Sociedade, Department of Pure and Environmental Sciences, ESAC, IPC, Bencanta, P-3040-316 Coimbra, Portugal.
C Department of Geography, University of Wales Swansea, Singleton Park SA2 8PP, United Kingdom.
D ALTERRA, Green World Research, PO Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, Holland.
E Corresponding author. Email: aferreira@esac.pt
Australian Journal of Soil Research 43(3) 327-336 https://doi.org/10.1071/SR04084
Submitted: 23 June 2004 Accepted: 7 January 2005 Published: 25 May 2005
Abstract
In addition to the incineration of vegetation and litter layer, fires are also responsible for the formation of a water repellent layer with significantly different severity and spatial distribution patterns following different burning intensities. Those spatial distribution patterns have an enormous influence on soil wetting patterns, and on hydrological processes at different scales.
This study attempts to understand the role of water repellence severity and spatial distribution patterns on soil, slope, and catchment water processes, and on the transmission of hydrological processes between different scales. The comparison between microplot (0.24 m2), plot (16 m2), and catchment (<1.2 km2) scales shows that water repellence spatial homogeneity enhances water fluxes transfer between the different scales. In fact, the more intense the fires, the more severe and spatially uniform the soil water repellency became. For burned areas with heterogeneous soil water repellency, overland flow produced in water repellent patches infiltrated downslope at hydrophilic sites, thereby reducing superficial water fluxes at wider scales. For the more severe and homogeneous water repellent areas following forest wildfires, overland flow was enhanced downslope, increasing fast superficial water fluxes at wider scales.
Additional keywords: water repellence, burned areas, spatial distribution patterns, hydrological processes.
Acknowledgments
This work has been performed with the financial help of the projects FAIR (6-CT98-4027, ‘Development of amelioration strategies to reduce environmental deterioration and agricultural production losses in water repellent losses’) and Portuguese Government projects Praxis XXI 3/3.2/Flor/2130/95 and Pamaf 3043 (‘Valorização da caprinicultura em regime silvo-pastoril, com vista ao desenvolvimento e fixação das populações das áreas serranas’). The ‘Comissão de Coordenação do Desenvolvimento Regional do Centro—Serviço de Hidrometria’ is acknowledged for lending some of the equipment. Jenny Fegent is acknowledged for her pertinent comments that help to make this paper more readable.
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