Predicting the potential impact of forest fires on runoff and sediment loads using a distributed hydrological modeling approach

Nasirzadehdizaji, Rouhollah; Akyüz, Dilek Eren

doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2022.109959

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…These latter benefits stem from increasing and prolonging snowpack [59], increasing soil water retention [60], and maintaining a cooler water temperature [61,62]. Beyond strictly hydrologic benefit streams, there are also likely to be risk reduction benefits from mitigating the likelihood of extreme fire and associated harmful water-related impacts, such as an increase in runoff velocity and flood risk [63], a decrease in snowpack through reduced albedo [64,65], and a decrease in water quality [66][67][68]. In addition, forest restoration can protect other stakeholders such as cities, counties, and electric utilities from fire risk; protect public health in the broader smokeshed; and protect and enhance recreation opportunities.…”

Section: Implications For Cost-sharingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Extreme fire on an untreated landscape generates the greatest increases in water yield of any of the modeled scenarios (Figure 3), and if such a fire did not fundamentally threaten other co-objectives in management, this would be the most advantageous scenario for energy and revenue production. However, as noted in Section 4.2, extreme fire typically poses other landscape and water-related risks, including erosion [66], changes in runoff patterns [63], and black carbon contamination on snow [65]. Moreover, in the absence of post-fire management, regrowth of thirsty grass and shrubs after severe disturbance can actually decrease water yield in the long run [74][75][76].…”

Section: Moving Towards Landscape Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring Interacting Effects of Forest Restoration on Wildfire Risk, Hydropower, and Environmental Flows

Bryant

Maurer²,

Saksa³

et al. 2023

Sustainability

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Forest fires in the western U.S. are increasing in size and intensity, partly due to overstocked forests, a legacy of fire exclusion. Forest restoration can mitigate fire severity and improve ecological health, but funding poses challenges to meaningfully scaling restoration efforts. Co-benefits of restoration can expand the funding options for forest management. In particular, streamflow enhancement may justify financial participation from water and hydroelectric utilities and environmental organizations. However, most efforts to estimate the value of this benefit do not account for interacting effects of restoration, fire, and operational constraints, including environmental flows. To address this, we coupled multiple models using generalizable techniques in order to quantify the impact of restoration on fire behavior, water yield, and hydropower generation in a California reservoir system subject to real-world constraints. The modeled results show water yield benefits from treatment alone, with greater benefits accruing with a return of low-intensity fire. Average annual runoff with treatment increases by 1.67 to 1.95 thousand acre-feet (1.5 to 1.8%) depending on the fire scenario, creating up to 2880 MWh and USD 115,000 of annual generation and revenue. These modest but non-negligible impacts could account for 8.2–15.8% of restoration costs, supporting the co-benefits model to drive investment in forest management.

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Section: Implications For Cost-sharingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Moving Towards Landscape Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Interacting Effects of Forest Restoration on Wildfire Risk, Hydropower, and Environmental Flows

Bryant

Maurer²,

Saksa³

et al. 2023

Sustainability

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show abstract

“…Robichaud et al [5] find that surface runoff can increase by over 70% in such cases, while erosion can increase by three orders of magnitude. In general, after a wildfire, precipitation events have noticeable effects, such as the formation of waterrepellent soils that cause immediate runoff, floods, roughness reduction, high peak flows, hydrological connectivity alteration, disruption of the infiltration processes, topographical alterations, delivery of sediment, post-fire debris flows and ash to streams [5][6][7][8]. The above negatively affects habitats, bridges, roads, buildings, and other infrastructures [9][10][11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating Post-Fire Erosion and Flood Protection Techniques: A Narrative Review of Applications

Papaioannou,

Alamanos,

Maris

2023

GeoHazards

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Wildfires affect and change the burned sites’ condition, functionality, and ecosystem services. Altered hydrologic processes, such as runoff, increased streamflows, and sediment transport, are only a few examples resulting from burned soils, vegetation, and land cover. Such areas are flood-prone and face risks of extreme peak flows, reduced infiltration, water pollution affecting habitats, and hydromorphological changes. In this study, we present the different post-fire erosion and flood protection treatments that have been developed to avoid and mitigate the consequences and risks mentioned above. We categorize them into Land, Channel, Barrier, and Road treatments and analyze their types, such as cover-based methods, barriers, mulching, in-channel treatments, such as check dams, seeding, or even chemical treatments. Examples of how such treatments were used in real cases are provided, commenting on their results in flood and erosion protection. We found that cover changes were more effective than barriers, as they provided an immediate ground-cover increase in both Mediterranean and US sites. We explore the factors that play a role in their effectiveness, including storm duration and intensity, topography and slopes, land cover and uses, treatment implementation-installation, as well as fire-related factors such as burn severity. These factors have different effects on different treatments, so we further discuss the suitability of each one depending on the site’s and treatment’s characteristics. The outcomes of this work are expected to improve the understanding of the practical aspects of these treatments, providing for the first time a synthesis of the available knowledge on the multiple complex factors that can determine their efficiency.

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“…Soil properties and transport processes on hillslopes are also important in the study of mountain hazards, as their characterization is required for understanding flash‐flood and debris‐flow triggering, landsliding or post‐fire landscape response (Nasirzadehdizaji & Akyuz, 2022; Rengers et al, 2019). Finally, physical soil properties can affect chemical weathering, for instance by modifying porosity and thus increasing the weathering surface, or by affecting vegetation development.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal dynamics of marly badlands illustrated by field records of hillslope regolith properties, Draix–Bléone Critical Zone Observatory, South‐East France

Ariagno

Pasquet

Bouteiller

et al. 2023

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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Sparsely vegetated badlands are loci of intense erosion that is sufficiently rapid to have observable effects on human timescales. Characterizing and understanding the physical weathering processes in these settings are key to predicting the temporal variability of regolith production and sediment flux, as well as their evolution under changing climate conditions. Here, we study intra‐annual changes of hillslope properties and explore the relationship between sediment production and transport in steep marly badland catchments of the Draix–Bléone Critical Zone Observatory (SE France), where decades‐long monitoring records show rapid morphological changes. There is evidence for seasonal dynamics of these badlands, but characterization and quantification of physical weathering processes have been lacking up to now. We explore this gap by monitoring key regolith parameters including grain‐size distribution (characterized by D50), surface resistance and water content in the regolith layer (surface to ∼10 cm depth) at different locations, through repeated field surveys over a 2.5‐year period. While water content appears to be directly controlled by the last previous rainfall event, the cyclic annual pattern in observed D50 suggests that loose and finely fragmented regolith is mainly produced and accumulates during the winter season, whereas sediment transport is dominant during spring–summer. This dynamic reduces regolith thickness and induces coarsening of hillslope surface material between early spring and autumn. Principal component analysis (PCA) highlights the strong correlation between resistance and D50. We therefore suggest that D50 provides the best proxy of regolith weathering in these marls. The spatial variability of the regolith was analysed through a geophysical profile, highlighting distinct behaviour depending on slope aspect. However, the distribution of slope angles is independent of aspect at the catchment scale. These results corroborate the strong annual dynamics of these catchments, where hillslopes and gullies are drained during spring and early summer high‐intensity precipitation events, inducing high sediment yields.

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Predicting the potential impact of forest fires on runoff and sediment loads using a distributed hydrological modeling approach

Cited by 11 publications

References 33 publications

Exploring Interacting Effects of Forest Restoration on Wildfire Risk, Hydropower, and Environmental Flows

Exploring Interacting Effects of Forest Restoration on Wildfire Risk, Hydropower, and Environmental Flows

Evaluating Post-Fire Erosion and Flood Protection Techniques: A Narrative Review of Applications

Seasonal dynamics of marly badlands illustrated by field records of hillslope regolith properties, Draix–Bléone Critical Zone Observatory, South‐East France

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