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),
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