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Project properties |
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| Title | Mitigating soil degradation and water contamination after wildfires |
| Group | Soil Physics and Land Management group |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 24-39 |
| Supervisor(s) | Joao Pedro Nunes |
| Examiner(s) | Coen Ritsema |
| Contact info | joao.carvalhonunes@wur.nl |
| Begin date | 2021/05/25 |
| End date | |
| Description | Forest fires are a recurring problem in Mediterranean regions, and increasingly occurring in northern Europe. Burnt areas are highly susceptible to soil erosion and ash exports, with associated organic and metal contaminants which have carcinogenic properties and are difficult to treat. This can cause land degradation in fire-prone areas, and sometimes leads to water supply interruptions after fires, as water treatment systems are overwhelmed and unable to cope.
Emergency post-fire solutions, such as soil stabilization with mulching, can mitigate this problem, but they are costly to implement, especially at short notice. Structural landscape changes, such as riparian vegetation buffers, might be easier to create, but their efficiency is not well known. And there are many questions about the cost-efficiency of these approaches, when compared to options before the fire to reduce fire severity and ash load, such as improved forest management; or water treatment options Research Objective/Question This study aims to understand what are the costs and benefits of multiple approaches to mitigate erosion and water contamination before and after fire, considering both biophysical and socioeconomic factors. This work is done within project FRISCO: managing Fire-induced RIsksof water quality COntamination. What is expected from the student (type of research) For a meso-scale watershed in central Portugal, and working with the team of project FRISCO: •apply the LAPSUS erosion model with fire severity maps to calculate post-fire erosion in the last decade(s) •compile a list of commonly used landscape approaches, including pre-fire control and post-fire mitigation measures, and test their effectiveness in LAPSUS under different application strategies •perform a multicriteria analysisof the measures accounting also for socioeconomic factors, taken from a literature survey and contact with Portuguese experts |
| Used skills | |
| Requirements | familiarity with ArcGIS and LAPSUS |