Please note that this session was withdrawn and is no longer available in the respective programme. This withdrawal might have been the result of a merge with another session.

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Prescribed fires and plant and soil environmemts: Monitoring, evaluation and research
Co-organized as HS12.7/SSS13.33
Convener: Manuel Esteban Lucas-Borja | Co-conveners: Petter Nyman, Orsolya Valkó, Demetrio Antonio Zema

Forest fires are a complex phenomenon that may generate a chain of responses and processes that affect each part of the ecosystem. Post-fire runoff and erosion are strongly and positively related to fire severity, which is due in large part to the changes in soil physical and chemical conditions. The more severe the fire, the greater the amount of fuel consumed, ash deposited, nutrients released, bare soil exposed, and the greater susceptibility to surface runoff and erosion. Key casual factors enhancing soil losses and runoff are the reduction in infiltration and some combination of sealing, soil water repellency, loss of surface cover, and disaggregation due to loss of soil organic matter. The changes in soil physical and chemical properties can then lead to large and potentially adverse changes in water quality. Low severity fires generally have fewer effects on vegetation, soils, runoff and erosion because the litter is not completely consumed, percent bare soil is typically less than about 30%, and soil organic matter is largely unchanged. Land managers conduct prescribed fires to reduce fuel loading or modify fuel structure with the intent to reduce the potential risk and severity of subsequent fires. Prescribed fires also are used to facilitate the germination and growth of desired forest species. Hence prescribed fires are typically planned to burn at low to moderate severity rather than high severity, and they are correspondingly quite patchy in space. Few studies have examined the effects of prescribed fire on larger plots in afforested pine plantations in Mediterranean ecosystems. Hence, the objective of this course is to assess the effects of a prescribed fire in plant soil ecosystems in order to build proper management guidelines for managers.