Effect of Salvage Logging and Check Dams on Simulated Hydrological Connectivity in a Burned Area

Abstract

This study assessed the effect of a wildfire and different post‐fire practices (salvage logging, skid trails and check dams) and vegetation recovery (eight scenarios) on the hydrological connectivity (HC) in 11 sub‐catchments (SubCs; 330 ha) affected by a wildfire (213 ha) in 2012 in Spain. According to the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager/Thermal Infrared Sensor images, moderate, high and extreme burn severity affected 42·1% of the area. HC was calculated with an updated version of the Borselli index. Within the burned area (BA), HC increased in all SubCs after the wildfire (PostF‐1), the salvage logging and the new skid trails (PostF‐2), and the development of new gullies (PostF‐3). Check dams reduced connectivity but did not prevent the general trend. Afterwards, the incipient (PostF‐4 and PostF‐5) and future vegetation recovery made slightly decrease HC. In the three forestry SubCs with check dams and large BA (67% of the study area), connectivity markedly increased (11·4%, 18·2% and 22·9%) during the three first post‐fire scenarios. In the three SubCs with urban areas and small BA (5%), HC decreased a little because the linear elements connected the hillslopes between them. In the three SubCs with urban areas and large BA (12%), HC increased less than in the forestry SubCs (3·0%, 8·2% and 9·1%). In the two forestry SubCs without check dams and small BA (16%), the increment of connectivity was low (2·5%, 4·6% and 6·3%). Monitoring of check‐dam siltation and of the actual vegetation regrowth is necessary to minimize the off‐site consequences of high HC. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Soil erosion from urbanization processes in the Sonoran Desert, Arizona, USA

“…Our findings are in contrast with the results of Nearing et al () who examined the response of seven soil erosion models to basic precipitation and vegetation‐related parameters, because higher specific sediment yield occurred in the second decade of the study period due to urbanization processes, despite less annual rainfall and less cumulative intense rainfall. Still, these findings are consistent with prior research emphasizing the importance of human activity in general (Vanmaercke, Poesen, Govers, & Verstraeten, ; Vanmaercke et al, ), on human‐caused wildfire (Martínez‐Murillo & López‐Vicente, ), on building new roads (Marchamalo et al, ; Nyssen et al, ), and on vehicle disturbance (Villarreal et al, ), and the importance of rock type in an urbanizing catchment (Ferreira et al, ).…”

“…Soil erosion in arid lands is the focus of this study and is often attributed to overgrazing (Al‐Awadhi, Omar, & Misak, ), wind erosion (Dong, Wang, & Liu, ), and overland flow of water that generates substantial loss even with low‐intensity events (Marques, Bienes, Pérez‐Rodríguez, & Jiménez, ). Critical transitions that greatly increase erosion often involve exposing bare soil through unpaved roads (Marchamalo, Hooke, & Sandercock, ; Nyssen et al, ; Villarreal et al, ) and human‐caused wildfire (Martínez‐Murillo & López‐Vicente, ).…”

Influence of DEM resolution on modelling hydrological connectivity in a complex agricultural catchment with woody crops

“…For each pixel, this qualitative index [-∞, +∞] accounts for the combined effect of the upslope topographic and land-use characteristics and these parameters' values throughout the flow path line a soil particle must travel to reach the nearest defined stream or sink. Several studies in southern (Sougnez et al, 2011;Martínez-Murillo and López-Vicente, 2017) and north-eastern Spain (López-Vicente et al, 2013aFoerster et al, 2014) proved its capacity to map runoff and sediment connectivity. the studies by Vigiak et al (2012) in Australia, Cavalli et al (2013) in Italy, D'Haen et al (2013 in Turkey, Gay et al (2016) in France, Cantreul et al (2016) in Belgium, and Chartin et al (2017) in Japan.…”

“…the studies by Vigiak et al (2012) in Australia, Cavalli et al (2013) in Italy, D'Haen et al (2013 in Turkey, Gay et al (2016) in France, Cantreul et al (2016) in Belgium, and Chartin et al (2017) in Japan. Several studies in southern (Sougnez et al, 2011;Martínez-Murillo and López-Vicente, 2017) and north-eastern Spain (López-Vicente et al, 2013aFoerster et al, 2014) proved its capacity to map runoff and sediment connectivity.…”

Impacts of human activities on the structural and functional connectivity of a river network in the Taihu Plain

“…Similarly, the construction of a check dam played a remarkable role in slowing down the delivery processes and off-site effects in a burned area of southern Spain (Martínez-Murillo & López-Vicente, 2017), and two other studies on a catchment scale also confirmed these results (Cote et al, 2009;Grill et al, 2014). Despite that our research objective was to replace dams with water gates, the impacts of these two barriers on the hydrological connectivity of a river network were almost identical, that is, the construction of both types of barriers gave rise to disconnected water passageways and discontinuous water flow.…”