Description and scope
Fire is a global phenomenon with important implications in many world ecosystems. Tropical, temperate, Mediterranean and boreal areas are affected recurrently by fire, which has shaped these ecosystems, altered their characteristics and changed their distribution. Thus fire is considered as a natural element with a wide range of diverse impacts. Among these, the impact on soils is the objective and focus of the course.
Soil properties can be substantially changed in space and time after fire. These changes can produce positive or negative impacts on the system, depending on the type of soil affected and fire severity. Fire severity and the degree of change depends in turn on fire behaviour and temperatures reached in soil, the residence time, and other biophysical variables (ecosystem type, fuel characteristics, topography, weather, etc.).
These changes can lead to deep post-fire changes in the ecosystem. Vegetation canopy is dramatically reduced by burning, increasing soil erosion risk and altering soil properties as water infiltration rates, hydrophobicity, structure, chemical and biological properties. In addition, the ash deposited has important physical, hydrological and chemical effects. The importance of these impacts depends especially on the post-fire conditions (wind and rain) and topography of the burned area. The combined degree of all these variables determines the ability of the ecosystem to recover.

Directed to:
Bachelor, Master, PHD and post-docs students

Programme

10:15 - 10:30
Opening ceremony
Paulo Pereira, Antonio Jordán, Guillermo Rein, Claudio Zaccone and Lorena M. Zavala

10:30 - 11:00
Vegetation controls on debris flows in burned areas
Kevin Hyde
Wyoming Center for Environmental Hydrology and Geophysics (USA)

11:00 - 11:15
Assessment of Temperature Reached in Fire-affected Soils with NIR
Raúl Zornoza
Department of Agricultural Science and Technology, Polytechnic University of Cartagena (Spain)

11:15 - 11:30.
Forest Fires effects on Boreal Soils
Kajar Koster
Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki (Finland)

11:30 - 11:45
Ash and soil interdependence in post-fire environments
Merche Bodi
SEDER Research Group, University of Valencia (Spain)

11:45 - 12:00
Forest Fires impact on soil biology
Evgeny Abakumov
Department of Applied Ecology, Saint-Petersburg State University (Russian Federation)

12:00
Delivery of certificates