EGU21-14028, updated on 04 Mar 2021
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-14028
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Modelling post-fire runoff and erosion processes for emergency assessment of post-fire flood hazards 

Nawa Raj Pradhan1, Ian Floyd1, Markus Berli2, Jang Pak3, Mitchell Price4, Stephen Turnbull1, Brandon Hobbs4, Francisca Olmos de Aguilera5, Rose Shillito1, and Jeremy Giovando6
Nawa Raj Pradhan et al.
  • 1US Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center, Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory, Vicksburg, MS, U.S.A.
  • 2Desert Research Institute, Division of Hydrologic Sciences, Las Vegas, NV, U.S.A.
  • 3U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Institute For Water Resources, Hydrologic Engineering Center, Davis, CA, U.S.A.
  • 4U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Walla Walla District, Boise, ID, U.S.A.
  • 5Florida International University, College of Engineering and Computing, Miami, FL, U.S.A.
  • 6US Army Corps of Engineers, Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, NH, U.S.A.

Land use change, as well as changes in the soil physical and chemical properties impact the runoff and erosion generation processes, and overall transport mechanism. Therefore, research and development of a watershed’s physics-based distributed runoff and erosion processes is needed to better predict discharge and erosion under different environments. This is important   for not only local floods and droughts and, geomorphological and landform changes point of view but also for a better understanding of the hydrology, erosion and land surface processes and its impact on ecosystem, transport system, environment and socio-economy and safety. One of the natural and/or manmade causes that brings about changes in land use and soil property is wildfires. In an effort to represent the physics of the watershed under post-fire conditions, this study presents a  detailed analysis of runoff and erosion generation processes, by including soil hydrophobicity and burn severity related soil hydraulic properties changes,  and transport responses, under sediment laden fluid flow conditions, in watersheds under burn conditions.  This study also conducted distributed hydro-geomorphological parameter value identification process for enabling engineers and hydrologists to provide critical post-fire flooding assessments for stakeholders and decision makers in relatively short period.

How to cite: Pradhan, N. R., Floyd, I., Berli, M., Pak, J., Price, M., Turnbull, S., Hobbs, B., Aguilera, F. O. D., Shillito, R., and Giovando, J.: Modelling post-fire runoff and erosion processes for emergency assessment of post-fire flood hazards , EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-14028, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-14028, 2021.

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