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Project properties |
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| Title | Modelling hydrological responses in burned and unburned forests |
| Group | Soil Physics and Land Management group |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 24-39 |
| Supervisor(s) | Jantiene Baartman |
| Examiner(s) | Coen Ritsema |
| Contact info | jantiene.baartman@wur.nl |
| Begin date | 2021/05/25 |
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| Description | Wildfires have become a persistent threat in the Mediterranean, especially in the Iberian Peninsula where, on average, more than 100 000 ha y 1 of land burned in the past decade. From the commonly reported environmental disturbances associated to wildfires, soil erosion by water is probably the one raising most concern. Depending on its severity, it even could result in catastrophic damage by destructive floods and debris flows to populated areas downstream, and damage aquatic habitats by contamination.
At the moment, several effective mitigation techniques to tackle post fire impacts are already available, and many have been tested in Portugal. Now, there is a need for a post fire modelling tool that allows to identify areas with the highest erosion risk, and to evaluate the effectiveness of erosion control measures optimizing thereby the use of resources in post fire management. Research Objective/Question The aim of this study is to test which model performs better estimating post fire hydrological and erosive response at slope scale, and also to assess if is possible to use such models as a post fire management tool. What is expected from the student (type of research) The student should participate in fieldwork campaigns taking place in recently burned areas, for model input collection. Additionally the student is expected to learn and apply a hydrological and soil erosion model to post fire environments (e.g. RUSLE, MMF, PESERA, OpenLISEM ), including calibration and validation with field data. |
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