Erosion and nutrient loss resulting from Ash Wednesday (February 1983) wildfires a case study

The effect of wildfire on runoff and erosion in nativeEucalyptus forest

“…Radionuclide analyses showed that the ®re volatilized all 7 Be in the soil, but 137 Cs remained (Elliot, 1994, personal communication), suggesting that the soil temperature was between 200 and 4008C during the ®re. The ®re was of moderate intensity, similar to those monitored by Blong et al (1982) and Atkinson (1984), but less intense than the extreme burns recorded by Brown (1972), Good (1973) and Leitch et al (1983). The 137 Cs inventory was similar for the burnt and unburnt catchments, indicating comparable erosion rates over the last 40 years.…”

“…Brown (1972) recorded sediment yields of 2500 t/km 2 in a 48 km 2 catchment from just 16 mm of rainfall over two hours, in an area where runo was greatly enhanced by an extreme ®re. Similarly, Leitch et al (1983) measured soil erosion of 1900±11 000 t/km 2 from hillslopes after an extremely intense ®re in 1983, where widespread overland¯ow was produced from a daily rainfall of only 17 mm.…”

Distinctiveness of wildfire effects on soil erosion in south-east Australian eucalypt forests assessed in a global context

“…Some of the distinctive characteristics of post-fire conditions in Australia outlined above are evident in mainstream as well as the less easily accessible publications (e.g. Boughton, 1970;Brown, 1972;Good, 1973;Humphreys and Craig, 1981;O'Loughlin et al, 1982;Burgess et al, 1981;Blong et al, 1982;Mackay and Cornish, 1982;Leitch et al, 1983;Mitchell and Humphreys, 1987;Burch et al, 1989;Prosser, 1990;Zierholz et al, 1995;Prosser and Williams, 1998;Dragovich and Morris, 2002;Shakesby et al, 2003Blake et al, 2005Blake et al, , 2006Wallbrink et al, 2005;Doerr et al, 2005Doerr et al, , 2006Lane et al, 2006), but the results and ideas are either often overlooked in general reviews of wildfire impacts or they have been published too recently for inclusion. In the case of oversight, this may have been caused by one of the following points: the relative inaccessibility of some of the Australian work; a focus on one aspect of post-fire behaviour or on the implications to the Australian environment; or the amount of research not having reached some 'critical mass' such that common outcomes became readily apparent.…”

Magnetic enhancement in wildfire‐affected soil and its potential for sediment‐source ascription

“…Leitch et al, 1983;Shakesby et al, 2003). At each site, an area of c. 0·5 m 2 was carefully cleared of loose ash, charcoal and any unburnt litter present and c. 100 g samples of (i) burnt surface soil and (ii) the underlying uppermost unburnt (paler) soil taken.…”