Effects of fire intensity and slope on surface soil erosion following a prescribed fire in old pinus nigra stands
Citation
Tüfekçioğlu, M., Sağlam, B., & Tüfekçioğlu, A. (2017). Effects of fire intensity and slope on surface soil erosion following a prescribed fire in old Pinus nigra stands. Fresenius Environ. Bull, 26(12), 7227-7234.Abstract
As a practical forest fuel-reduction technique,
prescribed fires have been implemented in many
countries regardless of their potential impact on surface soil erosion process. Greater runoff and surface
soil erosion (rill and inter-rill) after these forest fires
is facilitated by the lack of vegetative ground cover
on the soil surface and the degradation of soil physical characteristics. Here, the effects of different forest surface fire intensities and slope levels on surface
soil erosion were studied by using 5-m u 2-m runoff
plots. Specifically, three prescribed (controlled) burn
sites, one on a high (53%) and two on low (11% and
12%) slope areas in old stands of Pinus nigra trees,
were subjected to high (1596 kW/m) and low (567
kW/m and 797 kW/m) fire intensities. The experimental field study was conducted in 2013±2015 in
the Kunduz Province, Vezirkopru District in Samsun, Turkey. To achieve replication within each site,
three runoff plots were installed within each burn
site, and three other runoff plots in their adjacent
control (i.e., unburned) areas. A total of 18 surface
runoff plots were located on the ground to collect the
water samples, which were measured for their volume and picked up after each severe precipitation
event, or monthly when runoff had accumulated in
the collecting buckets. Results showed that surface
soil loss occurred even with the effects of low intensity of fire under high slope level; however, the effects were not marked with significant differences in
the low-slope areas regardless of fire intensity.
Therefore, our study suggests that surface prescribed
forest fires could be used as a management tool to
reduce the build-up of forest fuel loads, especially in
those low-sloping areas with a low potential of surface soil erosion.