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Evaluating the effects of burn severity and precipitation on post-fire watershed responses using distributed hydrologic models
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  • Zhi Li,
  • Bing Li,
  • Peishi Jiang,
  • Glenn Edward Hammond,
  • Pin Shuai,
  • Faria Tuz Zahura,
  • Ethan Coon,
  • Xingyuan Chen
Zhi Li
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
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Bing Li
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
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Peishi Jiang
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
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Glenn Edward Hammond
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
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Pin Shuai
Utah State University
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Faria Tuz Zahura
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Ethan Coon
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
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Xingyuan Chen
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Abstract

Wildfires can induce an abundance of vegetation and soil changes that may trigger higher surface runoff and soil erosion, affecting the water cycling within these ecosystems. In this study, we employed the Advanced Terrestrial Simulator (ATS), an integrated and fully distributed hydrologic model at watershed scale to investigate post-fire hydrologic responses in a few selected watersheds with varying burn severity in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The model couples surface overland flow, subsurface flow, and canopy biophysical processes. We developed a new fire module in ATS to account for the fire-caused hydrophobicity in the topsoil. Modeling results show that the watershed-averaged evapotranspiration is reduced after high burn severity wildfires. Post-fire peak flows are increased by 21-34% in the three study watersheds burned with medium to high severity due to the fire-caused soil water repellency (SWR). However, the watershed impacted by a low severity fire only witnessed a 2% surge in post-fire peak flow. Furthermore, the high severity fire resulted in a mean reduction of 38% in the infiltration rate within fire-impacted watershed during the first post-fire wet season. Hypothetical numerical experiments with a range of precipitation regimes after a high severity fire reveal the post-fire peak flows can be escalated by 1-34% due to the SWR effect triggered by the fire. This study implies the importance of applying fully distributed hydrologic models in quantifying the disturbance-feedback loop to account for the complexity brought by spatial heterogeneity.
05 Dec 2023Submitted to ESS Open Archive
10 Dec 2023Published in ESS Open Archive