Citation

Vieira DCS, Borrelli P, Jahanianfard D, Benali A, Scarpa S, Panagos P. Environ. Res. 2022; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.envres.2022.114936

PMID

36442524

Abstract

Annually, millions of hectares of land are affected by wildfires worldwide, disrupting ecosystems functioning by affecting on-site vegetation, soil, and above- and belowground biodiversity, but also triggering erosive off-site impacts such as water-bodies contamination or mudflows. Here, we present a soil erosion assessment following the 2017's wildfires at the European scale, including an analysis of vegetation recovery and soil erosion mitigation potential.

RESULTS indicate a sharp increase in soil losses with 19.4 million Mg additional erosion in the first post-fire year when compared to unburned conditions. Over five years, 44 million Mg additional soil losses were estimated, and 46% of the burned area presented no signs of full recovery. Post-fire mitigation could attenuate these impacts by 63-77%, reducing soil erosion to background levels by the 4th post-fire year. Our insights may help identifying target policies to reduce land degradation, as identified in the European Union Soil, Forest, and Biodiversity strategies.

Language: en

Keywords

Mitigation; Ecosystem services; Post-fire; RUSLE; Soil erosion