Quantification of wildfire-induced perturbations to soil-water retention curves and their impact on rainfall runoff
type: CreativeWork
description: Increased frequency and magnitude of wildfires can cause elevated post-fire rainfall-runoff and debris-flow hazards in and around steeplands. Improved prediction of the severity and spatial extent of post-fire increases to these hazards requires understanding which soil properties are most strongly affected by wildfire and what role these changes play in runoff generation and debris-flow initiation. Previous studies have shown significant post-fire perturbations to saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) and sorptivity, and in some cases these perturbations appear to exert a strong control on the observed increase in post-fire runoff and debris flow. However, a variety of other soil properties also influence rainfall infiltration rates into unsaturated soils. The soil-water retention curve (SWRC), also called the soil-water characteristic curve, is the relationship between matric suction and soil-water content and determines many critical unsaturated soil properties such as unsaturated hydraulic conductivity. The SWRC is commonly described using the Van Genuchten equation, in which key parameters are the residual water content, θr, saturated water content, θs, the pore-size distribution index, n, and the inverse of the air-entry pressure head, α. To date, the degree to which SWRCs are perturbed by wildfire is less clear, and as a result, they are commonly assumed to be unaffected by wildfire and obtained based on soil texture from databases composed of unburned agricultural soils. To quantify potential wildfire perturbations to SWRCs, we collected a suite of 43 unburned and 70 burned soil cores from seven recent wildfires in Nevada and California. We measured burned and unburned SWRCs and found best-fit Van Genuchten parameters θr, θs, n, α, using ASTM standard methods and the Meter HYPROP system. We found high quality fits to SWRCs from both unburned and burned samples using the Van Genuchten equation. While the magnitude of fire perturbation varies across fire sites…
abstract: Increased frequency and magnitude of wildfires can cause elevated post-fire rainfall-runoff and debris-flow hazards in and around steeplands. Improved prediction of the severity and spatial extent of post-fire increases to these hazards requires understanding which soil properties are most strongly affected by wildfire and what role these changes play in runoff generation and debris-flow initiation. Previous studies have shown significant post-fire perturbations to saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) and sorptivity, and in some cases these perturbations appear to exert a strong control on the observed increase in post-fire runoff and debris flow. However, a variety of other soil properties also influence rainfall infiltration rates into unsaturated soils. The soil-water retention curve (SWRC), also called the soil-water characteristic curve, is the relationship between matric suction and soil-water content and determines many critical unsaturated soil properties such as unsaturated hydraulic conductivity. The SWRC is commonly described using the Van Genuchten equation, in which key parameters are the residual water content, θr, saturated water content, θs, the pore-size distribution index, n, and the inverse of the air-entry pressure head, α. To date, the degree to which SWRCs are perturbed by wildfire is less clear, and as a result, they are commonly assumed to be unaffected by wildfire and obtained based on soil texture from databases composed of unburned agricultural soils. To quantify potential wildfire perturbations to SWRCs, we collected a suite of 43 unburned and 70 burned soil cores from seven recent wildfires in Nevada and California. We measured burned and unburned SWRCs and found best-fit Van Genuchten parameters θr, θs, n, α, using ASTM standard methods and the Meter HYPROP system. We found high quality fits to SWRCs from both unburned and burned samples using the Van Genuchten equation. While the magnitude of fire perturbation varies across fire sites…
author: Delgado, Nathan
keywords: hydrology, natural hazards, post-wildfire debris flows, soil-water retention curves, unsaturated soil mechanics, Van Genuchten
date published: 2022
date modified: 2026-07-27T21:46:30Z
provider: University of Nevada - Reno
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Nevada - Reno

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/11714/8204