Environmental assessment of erosion following prescribed burning in the Mount Lofty Ranges, Australia
Rowena H. Morris A B C F , Ross A. Bradstock B C , Deirdre Dragovich D , Meredith K. Henderson B E , Trent D. Penman C and Bertram Ostendorf A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Landscape Sciences, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia.
B Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre, Level 5, 340 Albert Street, East Melbourne, Vic. 3002, Australia.
C Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires, Institute for Conservation Biology and Environmental Management, University of Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia.
D School of Geosciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
E Science, Monitoring and Knowledge Branch, Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources, GPO Box 1047, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia.
F Corresponding author. Email: rowena.morris@adelaide.edu.au
International Journal of Wildland Fire 23(1) 104-116 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF13011
Submitted: 19 January 2013 Accepted: 15 June 2013 Published: 22 October 2013
Abstract
Erosion following fire has the potential to affect water quality, alter soil profiles and detrimentally affect human infrastructure. There is a clear need for environmental assessments to have regard for erosion concerns from prescribed burning. This study focussed on 10 prescribed burns conducted in the Southern Mount Lofty Ranges. Generalised additive modelling was used to determine the main significant environmental variables influencing the presence of sediment movement at 505 field-assessed sites. Sediment movement after the 10 prescribed burns was minor. Fire severity was a highly significant environmental determinant for the presence of sediment movement after prescribed burning. To predict erosion concerns, a suite of environmental variables is more reliable than focusing solely on slope steepness, as occurred before this study. These results indicate that erosion assessments need to consider a range of environmental variables to assess potential erosion and that land managers and scientists need to incorporate spatial sampling designs into erosion assessments.
Additional keywords: bioturbation, erosion assessment, fire severity, rainfall, sediment movement, slope, topography.
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