Post on 14-Jun-2020
FESP 7 7
th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FIRE EFFECTS ON SOIL PROPERTIES
UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA, ISRAEL 18-21.02.2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moderate Wildfire severity impacts on soil properties in a shrubland located in Dalmatia (Croatia): First results Paulo Pereira1, Leon Josip Telak2, Igor Bogunovic2, Ivica Kisic2
1 Environmental Management Laboratory, Mykolas Romeris University, LT-08303 Vilnius, Lithuania.
2 Faculty of Agriculture, Univeristy of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia.
Summer wildfires are a natural phenomenon in the Mediterranean environment. In the recent
decades there has been an increase in the wildfire season length as consequence of the longer
drought periods. The most problematic are the high severity wildfires that destroy vegetation cover
and increase the vulnerability of soils to erosion. Nevertheless, it is important to study the impacts
of low and moderate wildfires in order to understand the resilience of the ecosystems to these
wildfires. The aim of this work is to study the impacts of a moderate severity wildfire on soils with
different characteristics, with a) high (HS) and b) low stoniness (LS) in a Shrubland located in
Croatia, immediately after. A control (Con) plot was established in an unburnt area to identify the
impact of the wildfire. The properties analyzed were: 1) soil water repellency (SWR) in different
fractions (2-1 mm; 1-05 mm; 0.5-0.25 mm and <0.25 mm), using the water drop penetration test
(WDPT), 2) mean weight diameter (MWD), 3) water stable aggregates (WSA) and 4) pH. The study
area is located in Zadar County, Croatia (44°4’N, 15°31’E; average elevation 204 masl) in gentle
slope (1° inclination) with NE exposition. The fire affected an area of 3 to 4 ha covered by
schurbland. Eight samples were collected per treatment. The results showed that significant
differences were observed in SWR among treatments in all the studied fractions. LS areas had a
significantly higher SWR than HS and Con. On average the soils in HS and Con plots were wettable
(<5 seconds), while in LS there were different between the fractions. In the 2-1 mm fraction, the soil
had a low SWR, while in the other fractions, had a strong SWR. Generally, there was an increase in
SWR with the decreasing soil fraction. MWD and WSA was significantly higher in LS than in HR and
Con. Soil pH was significantly HR compared to Con.
Keywords: wildfire, severity, soil, stoniness
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by Croatian Science Foundation throughunder the project "Soil erosion and degradation in Croatia" (UIP-2017-05-7834) (SEDCRO).