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Author(s):
Paulo Pereira, Marcos Francos, Eric C. Brevik, Xavier Ubeda, Igor Bogunovic
Year Published:

Cataloging Information

Topic(s):
Fire Effects
Ecological - First Order
Soil Heating
Ecological - Second Order
Soils

NRFSN number: 17876
FRAMES RCS number: 26214
Record updated:

Soils are an important natural capital and can be negatively affected by high severity fires. The capacity of soil to recover from the degradation caused by fire disturbance depends on fire history, ash properties, topography, post-fire weather, vegetation recuperation and post-fire management. These factors are interdependent, and can increase or decrease the effects of high severity fires on soil degradation. Normally, ecosystems are resilient to fire disturbance and a scenario of no intervention should be considered. Post-fire management should be carried out in specific areas that are more susceptible to degradation. Post-fire interventions such as mulching are important to decrease soil degradation, whereas salvage logging increases it. Overall, the management options that we choose can trigger or reduce positive and negative impacts on soil.

Citation

Pereira, Paulo; Francos, Marcos; Brevik, Eric C.; Ubeda, Xavier; Bogunovic, Igor. 2018. Post-fire soil management. Current Opinion in Environmental Science & Health 5:26-32.

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