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Wildfire impacts on hillslope sediment and phosphorus yields

  • SEDIMENT RESPONSE TO CATCHMENT DISTURBANCES • RESEARCH ARTICLE
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Abstract

Purpose

The impact of wildfire on (a) slope hydrological processes, (b) soil erodibility, and (c) post-fire hillslope sediment and phosphorus (P; dissolved and particulate) yields are quantified for natural forest areas of the burned Evrotas River basin, Peloponnese, Greece. Further, the geochemical partitioning of P in burned and unburned sediment is evaluated by sequential extraction to assess potential bioavailability of particulate P (PP) in downstream aquatic ecosystems.

Materials and methods

A series of field-based rainfall simulation and infiltration experiments were undertaken in burned and unburned terrain of contrasting vegetation and soil type, after severe wildfires in summer 2007. Resulting water and sediment samples were analyzed for P concentration to permit calculation of hillslope yields for 20, 40, and 60 mm h–1 rainfall events. Samples of soil were collected from each site type for physical and geochemical analyses.

Results and discussion

Plot-scale rainfall simulation experiments and measurements demonstrate enhanced runoff and erosion rates in burned terrain. While dissolved P concentrations in runoff from burned terrain are elevated (0.21 ± 0.09 mg l–1) against background levels (0.01 ± 0.01 mg l–1) and exceed European water quality guidelines, PP represents 99% of the severely burned hillslope P yield (2.32 ± 1.63 kg ha–1 for a 15-min rainfall event). Sequential extraction data demonstrate that up to 20% of total PP in burned sediment is potentially bioavailable and that bioavaliable PP yields are two orders of magnitude greater than dissolved P yields.

Conclusions

Release of P from eroded sediment stored in downslope/downstream sink zones may protract the post-fire risk to downstream resources. Quantification of PP partitioning in eroded sediment is a key requirement when assessing the downstream impacts of wildfire.

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Acknowledgments

Research was funded by UK Natural Environment Research Council Grant Number: NE/F01273X/1. The authors are grateful to several people whose contribution made this work possible: Vasilis Papadoulakis, the Laconia Prefecture Geologist (Department of Water Resources, Sparti, Greece) for his advice on field locations; A. Tsoutsikos (NAGREF, Athens, Greece) who assisted with rainfall simulation experiments; Kev Solman (University of Plymouth) for assistance with sample analysis. Jamie Quinn (University of Plymouth) drew the figures. The manuscript benefited from comments on an earlier draft by Paul Worsfold (University of Plymouth) and the input of two anonymous reviewers whose thorough reviews improved the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, PL4 8AA, UK

    William H. Blake, Paul Clark & Richard Hartley

  2. Soil Science Institute of Athens, National Agricultural Research Foundation, 14123 Lykovrissi, Athens, Greece

    Sideris P. Theocharopoulos & P. Tountas

  3. Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Institute of Inland Waters, P.O. Box 712, 19013, Anavissos Attica, Greece

    Nikos Skoulikidis & Yorgos Amaxidis

Authors
  1. William H. Blake
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  2. Sideris P. Theocharopoulos
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  6. Richard Hartley
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Correspondence to William H. Blake.

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Responsible editor: Philip N. Owens

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Blake, W.H., Theocharopoulos, S.P., Skoulikidis, N. et al. Wildfire impacts on hillslope sediment and phosphorus yields. J Soils Sediments 10, 671–682 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-010-0201-y

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