Post-fire overland flow generation and inter-rill erosion under simulated rainfall in two eucalypt stands in north-central Portugal

The aim of this study was to improve the existing knowledge of the runoff and inter-rill erosion response of forest stands following wildfire, focusing on commercial eucalypt plantations and employing field rainfall simulation experiments (RSE’s). Repeated RSE’s were carried out in two adjacent but contrasting eucalypt stands on steep hill slopes in north-central Portugal that suffered a moderate severity fire in July 2005. This was done at six occasions ranging from 3 to 24 months after the fire and using a paired-plot experimental design that comprised two pairs of RSE’s at each site and occasion. Of the 46 RSE’s: (i) 24 and 22 RSE’s involved application rates of 45–50 and 80–85 mm h−1, respectively; (ii) 22 took place in a stand that had been ploughed in down slope direction several years before the wildfire and 24 in an unploughed stand.The results showed a clear tendency for extreme-intensity RSE’s to produce higher runoff amounts and greater soil and organic matter losses than the simultaneous high-intensity RSE’s on the neighbouring plots. However, there existed marked exceptions, both in space (for one of the plot pairs) and time (under intermediate soil water repellency conditions). Also, overland flow generation and erosion varied significantly between the various field campaigns. This temporal pattern markedly differed from a straightforward decline with time-after-fire and rather suggested a seasonal component, reflecting broad variations in topsoil water repellency. The ploughed site produced less runoff and erosion than the unploughed site, contrary to what would be expected if the down slope ploughing had occurred after the wildfire instead of several years before it. Finally, sediment losses at both study sites were noticeably lower than those reported by other studies involving repeat RSE’s, i.e. in Australia and western Spain. This possibly reflected a history of intensive land use in the study region, including in more recent times after the widespread introduction of eucalypt plantations.