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Author(s):
Joseph W. Wagenbrenner, Peter R. Robichaud
Year Published:

Cataloging Information

Topic(s):
Fire Effects
Ecological - First Order
Fire Intensity / Burn Severity
Ecological - Second Order
Soils
Water
Fire Regime

NRFSN number: 11032
FRAMES RCS number: 13333
Record updated:

Wildfires often produce large increases in runoff and erosion rates (e.g., Moody and Martin, 2009), and land managers need to predict the frequency and magnitude of postfire erosion to determine the needs for hazard response and possible erosion mitigation to reduce the impacts of increased erosion on public safety and valued resources. The Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) hillslope erosion model uses parameters based on field measurements to calculate the interrill and rill components of erosion (Nearing et al., 1989). Since rill erosion is the dominant hillslope erosion process in burned forests (Pietraszek, 2006), Robichaud et al. (2010) used simulated runoff experiments to compare rill erosion rates among unburned and burned forest plots in the western U.S. These experiments provided measurements of the magnitude of rill erosion in burned areas as compared to rates in unburned areas and also were used to calculate the rill erosion parameters needed for accurate prediction of post-fire erosion rates.

Citation

Wagenbrenner, Joseph W.; Robichaud, Peter R. 2011. Rill erosion rates in burned forests. In: 3rd International meeting of fire effects on soil properties; 2011 March 15-19; University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal.

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