Project info
Fires are frequent and recurrent phenomena in Mediterranean ecosystems exerting several ecological and environmental impacts caused in part by short and medium-term impacts on soil physical and chemical characteristics as well as on organic matter (OM) composition, properties and dynamics. Recently also smouldering in peat deposits, like the one that occurred in 2009 in Las Tablas de Daimiel National Park, is recognized as a real economical and ecological threat. Burning negatively affects soil health and quality favouring the occurrence of erosive processes and the loose of a non-renewable natural resource such as soil. Due to the large C pool present in soils, small deviations in soil OM content may have significant effects on biogeochemical cycles and and the global climate change. Soil erosion exposes OM to mineralization processes and represents the main factor of C losses in the planet’s surface. As a consequence of fire new forms of C are produced in the soil and thermal modifications of the previously existing C forms also occurs. These changes lead to the formation of substances with weak colloidal properties and enhanced resistance to chemical and biological degradation.
However, the effects of fire on soil are reversible. After the fire soil properties reverts naturally to a situation close to that before fire; erodibility is reduced and soil functionality is again achieved. An early detection of soil recovery is important for the decision making and planning of environmental restoration actions that have to be taken after forest fire events. Therefore, the main objective of the proposed project is the identification of biogeochemical markers surrogated to the recovery of soils affected by forest fires. The project proposes a multidisciplinary approach to the study of fire and smouldering affected soils at different time scale (cronosequences) that will allow us to obtain precise information about the processes involved in the lost of soil cohesion and increasing erodibility as well as about the changes driving to functionality recovery of fire affected soils
To achieve this, a variety of scenarios will be chosen that will include different soil types affected by conventional fires and smouldering phenomena during the past 10 years under different vegetation as well as near-by control soils with no history of forest fires. This study will be complemented by the analysis of soils burned under controled conditions in the laboratory. Changes in soil physical and chemical properties involved in soil erodibility and in the different forms of OM represented by the most labile forms of C (hydrosoluble and free lipids fractions) as well as the colloidal fractions (fulvic and humic acids) and other highly resilient forms of C (black carbon) that may be incorporated like charred biomass (necromass), will be studied in all chosen soils by different physicochemical techniques and advanced analytical techniques (chromatographical spectroscopical and degradative). The information obtained will be analyzed by multivariate statistical models that will help in a better knowledge about the changes excerted by high temperatures in the soil organic matter as well as in the detection of informative parameters for soil recovery.
However, the effects of fire on soil are reversible. After the fire soil properties reverts naturally to a situation close to that before fire; erodibility is reduced and soil functionality is again achieved. An early detection of soil recovery is important for the decision making and planning of environmental restoration actions that have to be taken after forest fire events. Therefore, the main objective of the proposed project is the identification of biogeochemical markers surrogated to the recovery of soils affected by forest fires. The project proposes a multidisciplinary approach to the study of fire and smouldering affected soils at different time scale (cronosequences) that will allow us to obtain precise information about the processes involved in the lost of soil cohesion and increasing erodibility as well as about the changes driving to functionality recovery of fire affected soils
To achieve this, a variety of scenarios will be chosen that will include different soil types affected by conventional fires and smouldering phenomena during the past 10 years under different vegetation as well as near-by control soils with no history of forest fires. This study will be complemented by the analysis of soils burned under controled conditions in the laboratory. Changes in soil physical and chemical properties involved in soil erodibility and in the different forms of OM represented by the most labile forms of C (hydrosoluble and free lipids fractions) as well as the colloidal fractions (fulvic and humic acids) and other highly resilient forms of C (black carbon) that may be incorporated like charred biomass (necromass), will be studied in all chosen soils by different physicochemical techniques and advanced analytical techniques (chromatographical spectroscopical and degradative). The information obtained will be analyzed by multivariate statistical models that will help in a better knowledge about the changes excerted by high temperatures in the soil organic matter as well as in the detection of informative parameters for soil recovery.
Funding
Project facts
Project name: GEOFIRE. Alteraciones geoquímicas en suelos afectados por el fuego
Funder: Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad
Reference: CGL2012-38655-C04-01
Total cost: 32,000 €
Duration: 01/01/2013 - 31/12/2015
Coordinator: José A. González Pérez (Insitute for Natural Resources and Agrobiologyof Sevilla)
Number of researchers: 16
Funder: Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad
Reference: CGL2012-38655-C04-01
Total cost: 32,000 €
Duration: 01/01/2013 - 31/12/2015
Coordinator: José A. González Pérez (Insitute for Natural Resources and Agrobiologyof Sevilla)
Number of researchers: 16