Journal article
Effects of aridity in controlling the magnitude of runoff and erosion after wildfire
PJ Noske, P Nyman, PNJ Lane, GJ Sheridan
Water Resources Research | AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION | Published : 2016
DOI: 10.1002/2015WR017611
Abstract
This study represents a uniquely high-resolution observation of postwildfire runoff and erosion from dry forested uplands of SE Australia. We monitored runoff and sediment load, and temporal changes in soil surface properties from two (0.2–0.3 ha) dry forested catchments burned during the 2009 Black Saturday wildfire. Event-based surface runoff to rainfall ratios approached 0.45 during the first year postwildfire, compared to reported values <0.01 for less arid hillslopes. Extremely high runoff ratios in these dry forests were attributed to wildfire-induced soil water repellency and inherently low hydraulic conductivity. Mean ponded hydraulic conductivity ranged from 3 to 29 mm h−1, much low..
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Funding Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning - Integrated Forest Ecosystem Research program, Melbourne Water and The Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre. The authors would like to thank John Constenaro for his tireless field support and Gabi Szegedy for her consistency in the laboratory. In addition, we would like to thank Christopher Sherwin, John Collopy, Pim Rijkee, and Steven Schrauwen for their assistance in the field, geologist Steve Boger, and local landowners Julian Carroll and Max Pedder. This project was funded by the Department of Sustainability and Environment Victoria and the Bushfire Cooperative Research Council. The authors would also like to thank the reviewers whose comments helped improve the manuscript. Data used in this study are available upon request from the corresponding author (pnoske@unimelb.edu.au).