Wildfires in Europe: burned soils require attention

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.

SIMOES VIEIRA Diana;  BORRELLI Pasquale;  JAHANIANFARD Dina;  BENALI Akli;  SCARPA Simone;  PANAGOS Panagiotis; 

2022-11-29

ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE

JRC130759

0013-9351 (online),   

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935122022630,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC130759,   

10.1016/j.envres.2022.114936 (online),