Mitigation of erosion after forest fires: a geomorphological approach based in GIS modeling

Abstract

The RECOVER (Immediate soil management strategy for recovery after forest fires) project aims to develop mitigation techniques and strategies to reduce soil and water degradation immediately after forest fires. Forest fires are becoming increasingly frequent as a result of climate variability, socio-economic change and poor forest planning, with deleterious impacts on soil fertility and structure. It erodes the top soil layers, where is located the only nutrient pool of the majority of Portuguese soils. This nutrient mobilization happens during the first autumn rainfall events, and therefore sediment and nutrient exportation typically occurs in the first 4/6 months after fire. The speed at which nutrient loss occurs and the extension of forest fires limits in terms of costs and logistics the solutions that can be taken to reduce soil and water degradation. RECOVER will test a set of feasible solutions to reduce ash flush. The proposed approach presents an innovative integration of field measurement techniques and will perform a perception analysis to all those with responsibilities in forest management. This is essential to produce feasible solutions that will be easily adopted by forest managers and forest owners.