Wildfire effects on soil carbon and water repellency under eucalyptus forest in Eastern Australia

Soil properties can be considerably modified as a result of wildfire. This study examined the impact of wildfire on total carbon and water repellency at two study sites, namely Cranebrook and Wentworth Falls, located 45 and 75 km west of Sydney, Australia, respectively. Within each study site, we measured soil properties at two depth intervals from five burn severity classes along 15 transects (10 sample points per transect). Samples were taken 6, 12 and 36 months after wildfire. Soil total carbon was measured using LECO combustion analysis and potential soil water repellency was determined using water drop penetration time. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyse the results, with burn severity and time as factors. Burn severity had a significant effect on both soil total carbon and water repellency at both study sites, whereas time was only significant for soil carbon at Wentworth Falls. Soil total carbon and water repellency were variable through time due to local environmental variables, such as rainfall and temperature. The relationship between soil total carbon and water repellency was strong for Cranebrook in the surface soil (r = 0.62) and lower in the subsurface soil (r = 0.41), but weaker at Wentworth Falls, with values of r = 0.22 and r = 0.15 in the surface and subsurface soils respectively.

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Basic soil properties as a factor controlling the occurrence and intensity of water repellency in rankers of the White Carpathians

Folia Forestalia Polonica ◽

10.1515/ffp-2015-0013 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 57 (3) ◽

pp. 129-137

Author(s):

Lucia Kořenková ◽

Martin Urík

Keyword(s):

Soil Properties ◽

Water Drop ◽

Negative Relationship ◽

Chemical Properties ◽

Water Repellency ◽

Total Carbon ◽

Soil Reaction ◽

Arable Soils ◽

Total Carbon Content ◽

White Carpathians

Abstract Water repellency in soils is controlled by many different factors, basic physical and chemical properties might be considered the crucial ones. For the purpose of this study, 12 sites were selected and sampled (0–20 cm depth) in the White Carpathians. Repellency tests were conducted under laboratory conditions in triplicate using water drop penetration time (WDPT) test and the molarity of ethanol droplet (MED) test. Results of WDPT measurements showed that three samples were marked by slight to extreme water repellency. Regarding the relationship between WDPT/MED and tested soil properties, the highest value of correlation coefficient was calculated for soil organic carbon (r = 0.706; p < 0.05), suggesting there is a positive, statistically significant correlation between repellency severity and total carbon content. A negative relationship between repellency and soil reaction/silt/silt + clay contents of studied soils was found. Samples taken from the surface horizon of arable soils showed no repellency.

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Vegetation Effects on Soil Properties in the Monteagle Sandy Loam Series: Implications for Land‐use Change

Inquiry@Queen's Undergraduate Research Conference Proceedings ◽

10.24908/iqurcp.7470 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Allison Neil

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Organic Matter ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Soil Properties ◽

Soil Carbon ◽

Sugar Maple ◽

Agricultural Land ◽

Deciduous Forest ◽

Coniferous Forest ◽

The Impact

Soil properties are strongly influenced by the composition of the surrounding vegetation. We investigated soil properties of three ecosystems; a coniferous forest, a deciduous forest and an agricultural grassland, to determine the impact of land use change on soil properties. Disturbances such as deforestation followed by cultivation can severely alter soil properties, including losses of soil carbon. We collected nine 40 cm cores from three ecosystem types on the Roebuck Farm, north of Perth Village, Ontario, Canada. Dominant species in each ecosystem included hemlock and white pine in the coniferous forest; sugar maple, birch and beech in the deciduous forest; grasses, legumes and herbs in the grassland. Soil pH varied little between the three ecosystems and over depth. Soils under grassland vegetation had the highest bulk density, especially near the surface. The forest sites showed higher cation exchange capacity and soil moisture than the grassland; these differences largely resulted from higher organic matter levels in the surface forest soils. Vertical distribution of organic matter varied greatly amongst the three ecosystems. In the forest, more of the organic matter was located near the surface, while in the grassland organic matter concentrations varied little with depth. The results suggest that changes in land cover and land use alters litter inputs and nutrient cycling rates, modifying soil physical and chemical properties. Our results further suggest that conversion of forest into agricultural land in this area can lead to a decline in soil carbon storage.

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A New Method to Quantify the Impact of Soil Carbon Management on Biophysical Soil Properties: The Example of Two Apple Orchard Systems in New Zealand

Journal of Environmental Quality ◽

10.2134/jeq2007.0508 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 37 (3) ◽

pp. 915-924 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Markus Deurer ◽

Siva Sivakumaran ◽

Stefanie Ralle ◽

Iris Vogeler ◽

Ian McIvor ◽

...

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Soil Properties ◽

Soil Carbon ◽

Apple Orchard ◽

New Method ◽

Carbon Management ◽

The Impact

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Effect of secondary succession in abandoned fields on some properties of acidic sandy soils

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-21898 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Peter Surda ◽

Lubomir Lichner ◽

Viliam Nagy

Keyword(s):

Pore Size ◽

Secondary Succession ◽

Water Drop ◽

Sandy Soils ◽

Water Repellency ◽

Organic Carbon Content ◽

Abandoned Fields ◽

Water Sorptivity ◽

The Impact ◽

Penetration Time

Abandonment of agricultural lands in recent decades is occurring mainly in Europe, North America and Oceania, and changing the fate of landscapes as the ecosystem recovers during fallow stage. The objective of this study was to find the impact of secondary succession in abandoned fields on some parameters of acidic sandy soils in the Borsk&#225; n&#237;&#382;ina lowland (southwestern Slovakia). We investigated soil chemical (pH and soil organic carbon content), hydrophysical (water sorptivity, and hydraulic conductivity), and water repellency (water drop penetration time, water repellency cessation time, repellency index, and modified repellency index) parameters, as well as the ethanol sorptivity of the studied soils. Both the hydrophysical and chemical parameters decreased significantly during abandonment of the three investigated agricultural fields. On the other hand, the water repellency parameters increased significantly, but the ethanol sorptivity did not change during abandonment. As the ethanol sorptivity depends mainly on soil pore size, the last finding could mean that the pore size of acidic sandy soils did not change during succession.

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Effects of a Canary pine forest wildfire (Tenerife, Canary Islands, summer 2007) on selected soil properties and their relationship with short- to medium-term soil water repellency .

Spanish Journal of Soil Science ◽

10.3232/sjss.2013.v3.n1.04 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 2 ◽

Author(s):

Alexis Hernández ◽

Natalia Rodríguez ◽

Marcelino del Arco ◽

Carmen Dolores Arbelo ◽

Jesús Notario del Pino ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Soil Properties ◽

Soil Water ◽

Forest Fires ◽

Sampling Site ◽

Aggregate Stability ◽

Water Repellency ◽

Pine Forest ◽

Soil Water Repellency ◽

Soil Hydrophobicity ◽

The Impact

Forest fires modify the soil environment, often triggering severe soil degradation. In this paper, we studied the impact of a large northern Tenerife Canariy pine forest wildfire on a set of relevant soil properties, focusing on their evolution in time and relationship with soil water repellency. To do this, soils were sampled at four sites (burned and non-burned) and several soil physical and chemical parameters were measured. The results show significant variations for soil pH, electric conductivity (CE1:5), and NH4+-N between burned and non-burned samples, whereas non-significant increases were found in burned soils for oxidizable carbon (Cox), total nitrogen (Ntot) , Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+ and K+, and soil hydrophobicity. The differences caused by the fire were no longer evident one year later. Furthermore, in one sampling site (Vitric Leptosols under low pine forest with a mixed heath/beech tree understory) a wide variation in the content of Cox and Ntot and high water repellency was observed relative to the other sites. These differences can be attributed to the composition of the understory vegetation. Significant correlations between soil hydrophobicity with CE1:5, aggregate stability and the contents of Cox, Ntot, NH4+-N, Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+ and K+ were found.

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Relationships of water repellency to soil properties for different spatial scales of study

Soil Research ◽

10.1071/s97071 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 36 (3) ◽

pp. 495 ◽

Cited By ~ 43

Author(s):

I. McKissock ◽

R. J. Gilkes ◽

R. J. Harper ◽

D. J. Carter

Keyword(s):

Organic Matter ◽

Soil Properties ◽

Western Australia ◽

Water Drop ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Organic Matter Content ◽

Water Repellency ◽

General Tendency ◽

The South ◽

South West

In order to predict the occurrence of water repellency, which is a labile property, from field survey data obtained throughout the year, it is necessary to identify predictive relationships between water repellency and commonly measured soil properties. This paper evaluates these relationships for diverse soil assemblages. These soil assemblages include a set of reference soils from the south-west of Western Australia (an area of 250 000 km2), more intensively sampled suites of soils in several smaller soil{landscape associations within the south-west of Western Australia (≅1000 km2), soils from single farms (1-10 km2) and transects (≅0·001 km2), and single soil profiles (≅m2). The severity of water repellency was assessed by measuring water drop penetration time in seconds (WDPT) and was related to intrinsic properties of soils using log-transformed data. For the set of soils from the West Midland Sandplain the type of land use was also considered as a variable. There is a general tendency for WDPT to increase as organic matter content increases and decrease as the content of fine mineral material increases (clay, silt, very fine sand). However, there is no single soil property that is able to predict WDPT adequately. Furthermore, reliability of prediction decreases as the area of sampling increases. There appear to be no systematic differences in the capacity of organic matter from pasture or crop to induce water repellency, but increments of organic matter under bush increase water repellency at a greater rate than does organic matter from crop or pasture.

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The impact of heating on the hydraulic properties of soils sampled under different plant cover

Biologia ◽

10.2478/s11756-009-0099-2 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 64 (3) ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Viliam Novák ◽

Ľubomír Lichner ◽

Bin Zhang ◽

Karol Kňava

Keyword(s):

Hydraulic Conductivity ◽

Soil Water ◽

Water Retention ◽

Water Drop ◽

Sampling Site ◽

Water Repellency ◽

Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity ◽

Soil Water Repellency ◽

The Impact ◽

Penetration Time

AbstractThe impact of heating on the peristence of water repellency, saturated hydraulic conductivity, and water retention characteristics was examined on soils from both forest and meadow sites in southwest Slovakia shortly after a wet spell. The top 5 cm of meadow soils had an initial water drop penetration time WDPT at 20°C of 457 s, whereas WDPT in the pine forest was 315 s for the top 5 cm and 982 s if only the top 1 cm was measured. Heating soils at selected temperatures of 50, 100, 150, 200, 250 and 300°C caused a marked drop in water drop penetration time WDPT from the initial value at 20°C. However, samples collected in different years and following an imposed cycle of wetting and drying showed much different trends, with WDPT sometimes initially increasing with temperature, followed by a drop after 200–300°C. The impact of heating temperature on the saturated hydraulic conductivity of soil was small. It was found for both the drying and wetting branches of soil water retention curves that an increase in soil water repellency resulted in a drop in soil water content at the same matric potential. The persistence of soil water repellency was strongly influenced by both the sampling site and time of sampling, as it was characterized by the results of WDPT tests.

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Small variations of soil properties control fire-induced water repellency .

Spanish Journal of Soil Science ◽

10.3232/sjss.2014.v4.n1.03 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 4 ◽

Author(s):

Jorge Mataix-Solera ◽

Lorena M. Zavala ◽

Antonio Jordán ◽

Gema Bárcenas-Moreno ◽

Elena Lozano ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Organic Matter ◽

Soil Properties ◽

Plant Species ◽

Water Repellency ◽

Soil Samples ◽

Soil Types ◽

Water Repellent ◽

Key Factors ◽

The Impact

Fire induced soil water repellency (WR) is controlled by many different factors (temperature reached, amount and type of fuel, etc.). Soil properties may determine the occurrence and intensity of this property in burned soils. The objectives of this paper are to make advances in the study of soil properties as key factors controlling the behaviour of fire-induced WR, and to study the impact of pre-fire SOM content and SOM quality in fire-induced soil WR. In this research, experimental laboratory burnings were carried out using soil samples from different sites with different lithologies, soil types and plant species. Soil samples taken from the same site differ only in quantity and quality of soil organic matter, as they were collected from under different plant species. All soil samples were heated in a muffle furnace at 200, 250, 300 and 350 ºC without the addition of any fuel load. WR was measured using the water drop penetration time test (WDPT). The results showed significant differences between soil types and plant species, indicating that small differences in soil properties may act as key factors controlling the development and persistence of WR reached, with burned soil samples ranging from wettable to extremely water repellent. The main soil property controlling the response was texture, specifically sand content. The quality of organic matter was also observed to have an effect, since soil samples from the same site with similar organic matter contents, but taken from beneath different plant species, showed different WR values after burning.

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Determination of Soil Properties and Fungal Interrelations Influenced by Forest Restoration on a Contaminated Zinc Mining Area

Applied Environmental Research ◽

10.35762/aer.2019.41.3.3 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 32-41

Author(s):

Chutima Kantong ◽

Kallaya Suntornvongsakul ◽

Yang-Soo Lee

Keyword(s):

Soil Properties ◽

Forest Restoration ◽

Soil Microorganisms ◽

Mining Area ◽

Fungal Species ◽

Sand Content ◽

Tak Province ◽

Study Sites ◽

The Impact

Forest restoration in a contaminated zinc mining area must take into account the environmental soil properties. This study aimed to analyze the soil properties from the three different stages of restored forests, at 3, 7 and 17, focusing on the impact on soil microorganisms and availability of fungal species. Three study sites were selected, all located in a zinc mining area in Mae Sot District, Tak Province, Thailand. The results showed that observed soil properties especially soil texture, moisture and nutrients differed between stand initiation and regrowth forests and affected the distribution of fungal species. Soils in older forest stands up to 17 years old showed higher sand content and reduced soil moisture, SOM, and certain nutrients. Forest restoration was found to favour development of a range of soil properties, some of which were suitable for fruiting in nine fungal species from the following families: Agaricaceae, Psathyrellaceae, Cantharellaceae, Phallacae, Coprinaceae, Sclerodermataceae, Lycoperdaceae, Marasmiaceae, and Clavariaceae.

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The impact of vegetation on hydraulic conductivity of sandy soil

Soil and Water Research ◽

10.17221/2115-swr ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 2 (No. 2) ◽

pp. 59-66 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

L. Lichner ◽

T. Orfánus ◽

K. Novákova ◽

M. Šír ◽

M. Tesař

Keyword(s):

Hydraulic Conductivity ◽

Forest Soil ◽

Sandy Soil ◽

Preferential Flow ◽

Water Drop ◽

Water Repellency ◽

Forest Site ◽

Meadow Soil ◽

Capillary Suction ◽

The Impact

The objective of this study was to assess the impact of vegetation on the hydraulic conductivity of sandy soil at the locality Mláky II at Sekule (southwest Slovakia). The measurements were taken on the surface of a meadow (Meadow site), a 30-year old Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) forest (Forest site) and a glade (Glade site). In the glade, the measurements were also taken in the depth of 50 cm (Pure sand) to reduce the influence of vegetation on the soil properties. It was found that the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity kr(−2 cm) as reduced due to the soil water repellency increased in the same order: Forest soil < Glade soil ≈ Meadow soil < Pure sand, similarly as decreased the water drop penetration time tp: Forest soil > Glade soil ≈ Meadow soil > Pure sand, which could refer to an inverse proportionality between the capillary suction and hydrophobic coating of the soil particles. The saturated hydraulic conductivity Ks increased in the following order: Meadow soil < Glade soil ≈ Forest soil < Pure sand; more than two-times higher Ks at both the Forest and Glade sites than that at the Meadow site could be the result of both the patchy growth of vegetation with some areas of bare soil at the Glade site and the macropores (dead roots) in more homogeneous humic top-layer at the Forest site. The share Br of flux through the pores with radii r longer than approximately 0.5 mm decreased in the order: Forest soil » Meadow soil > Glade soil » Pure sand, revealing the prevalence of preferential flow through macropores (dead roots) in the Forest site and a negligible share of macropores in the Pure sand.

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