- Title
- Estimating the extent of fire induced soil water repellency in Mediterranean environment
- Creator
- Weninger, Thomas; Filipović, Vilim; Mešić, Mirel; Clothier, Brent; Filipović, Lana
- Date
- 2019
- Type
- Text; Journal article
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/188932
- Identifier
- vital:17355
- Identifier
-
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2018.12.008
- Identifier
- ISSN:0016-7061
- Abstract
- The fire occurrence in Mediterranean climate regions and the area affected by fire in general are rising due to prolonged drought periods and redistribution of rainfall. This can have effect on soil properties and local scale hydrology by increasing fire induced soil water repellency (SWR). The main objective of our research was to assess the degree of fire induced SWR in the Mediterranean karst area using multiple easy-to-perform field and laboratory methods. The field infiltration measurements were performed with a tension disc infiltrometer (TI) and a minidisc tension infiltrometer (MD) using water and ethanol as an infiltrating liquid on two locations: burnt (B) and control (C, unaffected by fire). Additionally, water drop penetration time test (WDPT), and molarity of ethanol droplet time test (MED) were applied at the laboratory on disturbed and undisturbed soil samples at various depths. All measurements revealed significant differences between burnt and control plots. Infiltration and hydraulic conductivity were reduced and repellency index (RI) was increased at the fire affected sites. The SWR decreased with depth which can be associated with decreasing organic matter and fire burning effect. The WDPT and MED methods in combination with mini disc tension infiltrometer measurements were found useful for the determination of sub-critical SWR. Further research is needed to develop a framework for the quantitative SWR classification, as well as subsequent estimation of the relevance of SWR on critical hydrological processes such as infiltration, runoff, and preferential flow. •Fire affected plots revealed SWR with significant change in infiltration patterns.•SWR decreased with increasing depth and decreasing organic matter content.•The combination of applied methods is useful in determination of sub-critical SWR.•Hydraulic conductivities decreased with increasing repellency indexes (RI).•All methods confirm SWR at burnt sites, but with some discrepancies between them.
- Publisher
- Elsevier B.V
- Relation
- Geoderma Vol. 338, no. (2019), p. 187-196
- Rights
- All metadata describing materials held in, or linked to, the repository is freely available under a CC0 licence
- Rights
- Copyright Elsevier
- Subject
- Burnt soil; Forest fire; Infiltration; Soil water repellency estimation; Sub-critical SWR; 4106 Soil sciences
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