Efthimiou Nikolaos, Psomiadis Emmanouil, Panagos Panos
European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra, Italy.
Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, Praha - Suchdol 165 00, Czech Republic.
Catena (Amst). 2020 Apr;187:104320. doi: 10.1016/j.catena.2019.104320.
In recent years, forest fires have increased in terms of frequency, extent and intensity, especially in Mediterranean countries. Climate characteristics and anthropogenic disturbances lead forest environments to display high vulnerability to wildfires, with their sustainability being threatened by the loss of vegetation, changes on soil properties, and increased soil loss rates. Moreover, wildfires are a great threat to property and human life, especially in Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) areas. In light of the impacts and trends mentioned above, this study aims to assess the impact of the Mati, Attika wildfire on soil erosion. The event caused 102 fatalities, inducing severe consequences to the local infrastructure network; economy; and natural resources. As such, the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) was implemented (pre-; post-fire) at the Rafina, Attika watershed encompassing the Mati WUI. Fire severity was evaluated based on the Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR). This index was developed utilizing innovative remotely sensed Earth Observation data (Sentinel-2). The high post-fire values indicate the fire's devastating effects on vegetation loss and soil erosion. A critical "update" was also made to the CORINE Land Cover (CLC) v. 2018, by introducing a new land use class namely "Urban Forest", in order to distinguish the WUI configuration. Post-fire erosion rates are notably higher throughout the study area (4.53-5.98 t ha y), and especially within the WUI zone (3.75-18.58 t ha y), while newly developed and highly vulnerable cites now occupy the greater Mati area. Furthermore, archive satellite data (Landsat-5) revealed how the repeated (historical) wildfires have ultimately impacted vegetation recovery and erosional processes. To our knowledge this is the first time that RUSLE is used to simulate soil erosion at a WUI after a fire event, at least at a Mediterranean basin. The realistic results attest that the model can perform well at such diverse conditions, providing a solid basis for soil loss estimation and identification of high-risk erosion areas.
近年来，森林火灾在发生频率、范围和强度方面均有所增加，尤其是在地中海国家。气候特征和人为干扰致使森林环境对野火表现出高度脆弱性，其可持续性受到植被丧失、土壤性质变化以及土壤流失率增加的威胁。此外，野火对财产和人类生命构成巨大威胁，特别是在城乡交错带（WUI）地区。鉴于上述影响和趋势，本研究旨在评估阿提卡州马蒂地区野火对土壤侵蚀的影响。该事件造成102人死亡，给当地基础设施网络、经济和自然资源带来了严重后果。因此，在涵盖马蒂城乡交错带的阿提卡州拉菲纳流域实施了修订后的通用土壤流失方程（RUSLE）（火灾前和火灾后）。基于归一化燃烧比（NBR）评估火灾严重程度。该指数是利用创新的遥感地球观测数据（哨兵-2）开发的。火灾后该指数的高值表明火灾对植被丧失和土壤侵蚀具有毁灭性影响。还对2018年版的《欧洲土地覆盖图》（CORINE Land Cover，CLC）进行了一项关键“更新”，引入了一个新的土地利用类别，即“城市森林”，以区分城乡交错带的配置。整个研究区域火灾后的侵蚀率显著更高（4.53 - 5.98吨/公顷·年），尤其是在城乡交错带区域（3.75 - 18.58吨/公顷·年），而新开发且高度脆弱的城市如今占据了更大的马蒂地区。此外，存档卫星数据（陆地卫星5号）揭示了反复发生的（历史）野火最终如何影响植被恢复和侵蚀过程。据我们所知，这是首次将RUSLE用于模拟火灾事件后城乡交错带的土壤侵蚀，至少在地中海盆地是如此。实际结果证明该模型在如此多样的条件下能够表现良好，为土壤流失估算和高风险侵蚀区域的识别提供了坚实基础。
