Universal hydrological trends post-wildfire are obscured by local watershed variability

Datos Bibliográficos

ID15548428
AutoresBrian Brown (0000-0003-0670-0924, Brigham Young University, autor de correspondencia), Caleb Crandall (0009-0005-1098-1820, Brigham Young University), Andrea Betterle (0000-0003-2979-5428, Joint Research Centre), Jeffrey Brown (0000-0001-8584-3602, Colorado State University), Samuel B St Clair (0000-0001-6612-0329, Brigham Young University), David Grimsman (0000-0003-3350-382X, Brigham Young University), Camille Minaudo (0000-0003-0979-9595, Universitat de Barcelona), Travis Tyler (Brigham Young University), Benjamin M Jones (0000-0003-0331-5625), Benjamin Jones (0000-0002-4312-6995, University of Alaska Fairbanks), Sean Warnick (0000-0001-5485-1909, Brigham Young University), Jordan D Maxwell (Brigham Young University), Jordan Maxwell, Benjamin W Abbott (0000-0001-5861-3481), Ben Abbott (Brigham Young University)
Año2025
Volumen20
Número11
Páginas114070-114070
Fecha de publicación2025-10-09
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEnvironmental Research Letters (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326
EditorialIOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1088/1748-9326/ae114d
OpenAlexW4415004719
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas50

Changing wildfire regimes in recent decades have prompted extensive investigation into their hydrological impact. However, contradictory findings on post-fire flow regime changes have highlighted the complexity of this relationship. This study considers rich daily-resolution hydrological data on 898 burned catchments and over 8000 unburned control catchments to choose a set of 39 paired catchment experiments, along with 500 control pair experiments. We use these 500 control catchments to evaluate the extent to which the paired watershed approach accounts for hidden co-varying factors, finding that in most instances, it does not. We assess the influence of wildfires on flow magnitude, timing, and dynamicity. We also explore the effects of wildfire on water storage, evapotranspiration, and flood flows across the Western USA from 1984 to 2023. We find that percent changes in flow magnitude post-fire are not statistically significant and are uncorrelated with the percent of the catchment that burned, even when data are restricted to the critical first 5 years post-fire. However, linear regression analysis of 94 catchment variables found weak positive relationships between pre-fire forest cover and percent changes in flow magnitudes. Our results emphasize that the statistical uncertainty associated with even well-established methods may overshadow the magnitude of observed effects

Drainage basin · Flood control · Flood myth · Flow (mathematics · Hydrology (agriculture · Magnitude (astronomy · Regression · Uncorrelated · Watershed · Cryospheric studies and observations · Fire effects on ecosystems · Landslides and related hazards