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Temporal trends in the protective capacity of burnt beech forests (Fagus sylvatica L.) against rockfall

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Abstract

Beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) forests covering relief-rich terrain often provide direct protection from rockfall for humans and their property. However, the efficacy in protecting against such hazards may abruptly and substantially change after disturbances such as fires, windthrows, avalanches and insect outbreaks. To date, there is little known about the mid-term evolution of the protective capacity in fire-injured beech stands. We selected 34 beech stands in the Southern European Alps that had burnt in different intensity fires over the last 40 years. We inventoried all living and dead trees in each stand and subsequently applied the rockfall model Rockfor.net to assess the protective capacity of fire-injured forests against falling rocks with volumes of 0.05, 0.2, and 1 m3. We tested forested slopes with mean gradients of 27°, 30°, and 35° and lengths of 75 and 150 m. Burnt beech forests hit by low-severity fires have nearly the same protective capacity as unburnt forests, because only thin fire-injured trees die while intermediate-sized and large-diameter trees mostly survive. However, the protective capacity of moderate- to high-severity burns is significantly reduced, especially between 10 and 30 years after the fire. In those cases, silvicultural or technical measures may be necessary. Besides the installation of rockfall nets or dams, small-scale felling of dying trees and the placement of stems at an oblique angle to the slope can mitigate the reduction in protection provided by the forest.

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Acknowledgment

This study was supported in part by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) and by the “Fondo di Ricerca Locale 2015–2016” of the University of Torino. Fieldwork assistance was carried out with the support of Franco Fibbioli, Simone Giavi, Marianne Steffen, Lisa Berghäuser, and Jordi Murgadas from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research and Sven Hofmann from the University of Karlsruhe (Germany).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Landscape Planning and Ecology, University of Stuttgart, Keplerstr. 11, 70174, Stuttgart, Germany

    Janet Maringer

  2. Department of Agriculture, Forest and Food Sciences, University of Turin, via Leonardo da Vinci 44, 10095, Grugliasco, Italy

    Davide Ascoli

  3. School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences HAFL, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Länggasse 85, 3052, Zollikofen, Switzerland

    Luuk Dorren

  4. WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Mountain Ecosystems, Flüelastrasse 11, 7260, Davos Dorf, Switzerland

    Peter Bebi

  5. Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Insubric Ecosystems, A Ramél 18, 6593, Cadenazzo, Switzerland

    Janet Maringer & Marco Conedera

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  1. Janet Maringer
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  2. Davide Ascoli
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Correspondence to Janet Maringer.

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Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

SM. 1 A low-severity burn 10 years post-fire (D.Ascoli). (EPS 41020 kb)

SM. 2 A moderate-severity burn six years post-fire (D.Ascoli). (EPS 39412 kb)

SM. 3 A high-severity burn four years post-fire (D.Ascoli). (EPS 33356 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM4_ESM.eps

SM. 4 Temporal trends in the protective capacity [%] of beech stands hit by low, moderate and high burn severity and the corresponding unburnt beech forests against rocks of 0.05 m3, on 75 m forested slopes and 27° slope inclination. (EPS 685 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM5_ESM.eps

SM. 5 Temporal trends in the protective capacity [%] of beech stands hit by low, moderate and high burn severity and the corresponding unburnt beech forests against rocks of 0.05 m3, on 75 m forested slopes and 30° slope inclination. (EPS 686 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM6_ESM.eps

SM. 6 Temporal trends in the protective capacity [%] of beech stands hit by low, moderate and high burn severity and the corresponding unburnt beech forests against rocks of 0.05 m3, on 75 m forested slopes and 35° slope inclination. (EPS 538 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM7_ESM.eps

SM. 7 Temporal trends in the protective capacity [%] of beech stands hit by low, moderate and high burn severity and the corresponding unburnt beech forests against rocks of 0.05 m3, on 150 m forested slopes and 27° slope inclination. (EPS 684 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM8_ESM.eps

SM. 8 Temporal trends in the protective capacity [%] of beech stands hit by low, moderate and high burn severity and the corresponding unburnt beech forests against rocks of 0.05 m3, on 150 m forested slopes and 30° slope inclination. (EPS 682 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM9_ESM.eps

SM. 9 Temporal trends in the protective capacity [%] of beech stands hit by low, moderate and high burn severity and the corresponding unburnt beech forests against rocks of 0.05 m3, on 150 m forested slopes and 35° slope inclination. (EPS 692 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM10_ESM.eps

SM. 10 Temporal trends in the protective capacity [%] of beech stands hit by low, moderate and high burn severity and the corresponding unburnt beech forests against rocks of 0.2 m3, on 75 m forested slopes and 27° slope inclination. (EPS 651 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM11_ESM.eps

SM. 11 Temporal trends in the protective capacity [%] of beech stands hit by low, moderate and high burn severity and the corresponding unburnt beech forests against rocks of 0.2 m3, on 75 m forested slopes and 30° slope inclination. (EPS 674 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM12_ESM.eps

SM. 12 Temporal trends in the protective capacity [%] of beech stands hit by low, moderate and high burn severity and the corresponding unburnt beech forests against rocks of 0.2 m3, on 75 m forested slopes and 35° slope inclination. (EPS 684 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM13_ESM.eps

SM. 13 Temporal trends in the protective capacity [%] of beech stands hit by low, moderate and high burn severity and the corresponding unburnt beech forests against rocks of 0.2 m3, on 150 m forested slopes and 27° slope inclination. (EPS 684 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM14_ESM.eps

SM. 14 Temporal trends in the protective capacity [%] of beech stands hit by low, moderate and high burn severity and the corresponding unburnt beech forests against rocks of 0.2 m3, on 150 m forested slopes and 30° slope inclination. (EPS 689 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM15_ESM.eps

SM. 15 Temporal trends in the protective capacity [%] of beech stands hit by low, moderate and high burn severity and the corresponding unburnt beech forests against rocks of 0.2 m3, on 150 m forested slopes and 35° slope inclination. (EPS 693 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM16_ESM.eps

SM. 16 Temporal trends in the protective capacity [%] of beech stands hit by low, moderate and high burn severity and the corresponding unburnt beech forests against rocks of 1 m3, on 75 m forested slopes and 27° slope inclination. (EPS 697 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM17_ESM.eps

SM. 17 Temporal trends in the protective capacity [%] of beech stands hit by low, moderate and high burn severity and the corresponding unburnt beech forests against rocks of 1 m3, on 75 m forested slopes and 30° slope inclination (EPS 694 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM18_ESM.eps

SM. 18 Temporal trends in the protective capacity [%] of beech stands hit by low, moderate and high burn severity and the corresponding unburnt beech forests against rocks of 1 m3, on 75 m forested slopes and 35° slope inclination (EPS 691 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM19_ESM.eps

SM. 19 Temporal trends in the protective capacity [%] of beech stands hit by low, moderate and high burn severity and the corresponding unburnt beech forests against rocks of 1 m3, on 150 m forested slopes and 27° slope inclination (EPS 996 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM20_ESM.eps

SM. 20 Temporal trends in the protective capacity [%] of beech stands hit by low, moderate and high burn severity and the corresponding unburnt beech forests against rocks of 1 m3, on 150 m forested slopes and 30° slope inclination (EPS 697 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM21_ESM.eps

SM. 21 Temporal trends in the protective capacity [%] of beech stands hit by low, moderate and high burn severity and the corresponding unburnt beech forests against rocks of 1 m3, on 150 m forested slopes and 35° slope inclination (EPS 697 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM22_ESM.eps

SM. 22 The influence of logs, snags (standing dead) and trees (standing alive) in the total protective capacity against rockfall for the burnt forests visualized separately for the five defined levels of protection (>=90% very good protection, 75–90% good protection, 50–75% adequate protection, 25–50% moderate protection, and < 25% inadequate protection (EPS 2751 kb)

10342_2016_962_MOESM23_ESM.eps

SM. 23 The influence of logs, snags (standing dead) and trees (standing alive) in the total protective capacity against rockfall for the unburnt forests visualized separately for the five defined levels of protection (>=90% very good protection, 75–90% good protection, 50–75% adequate protection, 25–50% moderate protection, and < 25% inadequate protection (EPS 2774 kb)

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 3, 4 and 5.

Table 3 Investigated burns sorted by the date of fire
Full size table
Table 4 Estimates and standard error of the mixed-effect model for stem densities modeled against slope inclination
Full size table
Table 5 Linear regression models for temporal trends in the years post-fire (AGE) of the protective capacity of burnt beech stands differing in burn severity (low, moderate, high) and the corresponding unburnt forests
Full size table

Slopes of the plots were measured in degree and implemented as the explanatory variable in a mixed-effect model with negative binomial distribution (Bolker et al. 2012). Stem densities served as the response variable, and because of the high intra-class correlation, burns were implemented as random effect in the model. The result shows that slope inclination was not significant at the 0.05-level (Table 4), and thus it was possible to use standardized slope inclination in the Rockfor.net tool. Against this background, the 1st (26.7°) and 3rd (35°) tertiles, as well as the mean (29.7°), were used as standardized slope inclinations.

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Maringer, J., Ascoli, D., Dorren, L. et al. Temporal trends in the protective capacity of burnt beech forests (Fagus sylvatica L.) against rockfall. Eur J Forest Res 135, 657–673 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-016-0962-y

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