Abstract
Abstract. Twelve mountainous basins of the Vitim Plateau (Eastern Siberia, Russia) with areas ranging from 967 to 18 200 km2 affected by extensive fires in 2003 (from 13 to 78% of burnt area) were delineated based on MODIS Burned Area Product. The studied area is characterized by scarcity of hydrometeorological observations and complex hydrological processes. Combined analysis of monthly series of flow and precipitation was conducted to detect short-term fire impact on hydrological response of the basins. The idea of basin-analogues which have significant correlation of flow with "burnt" watersheds in stationary (pre-fire) period with the assumption that fire impact produced an outlier of established dependence was applied. Available data allowed for qualitative detection of fire-induced changes at two basins from twelve studied. Summer flow at the Amalat and Vitimkan Rivers (22 and 78% proportion of burnt area in 2003, respectively) increased by 40–50% following the fire.The impact of fire on flow from the other basins was not detectable.The hydrological model Hydrograph was applied to simulate runoff formation processes for stationary pre-fire and non-stationary post-fire conditions. It was assumed that landscape properties changed after the fire suggest a flow increase. These changes were used to assess the model parameters which allowed for better model performance in the post-fire period.
Highlights
Increasing intensity and number of forest fires in Russia are becoming a serious threat (Assessment Report on Climate Change, 2008)
Though the studies of fire impact on environment have a long history in Russia, they mostly aim to assess the changes of vegetation (Lytkina, 2005), soil and permafrost (Tarabukina and Savvinov, 1990) or snow cover properties (Sabaeva, 2006) after fire and describe/predict the processes of forest succession and transformation of species diversity resulting from different types of fires (Isaev, 2011; Kharuk et al, 2008)
Despite the fact that the effects of fire on catchment runoff response may be disproportionately strong compared to the area of burnt-out forest (Moody et al, 2008), the studies of those, such as abrupt changes of hydrological regime or the intensification of erosion processes that can lead to catastrophic flooding and even debris flows (Huscroft et al, 2004), are practically absent in Russia
Summary
Increasing intensity and number of forest fires in Russia are becoming a serious threat (Assessment Report on Climate Change, 2008). Despite the fact that the effects of fire on catchment runoff response may be disproportionately strong compared to the area of burnt-out forest (Moody et al, 2008), the studies of those, such as abrupt changes of hydrological regime or the intensification of erosion processes that can lead to catastrophic flooding and even debris flows (Huscroft et al, 2004), are practically absent in Russia. Following the studies by Lebedeva et al (2014) and Semenova et al (2015) who detected a short-term effect of fire on a small mountainous catchment in the Vitim River basin which resulted in significantly increased summer flow, this research aimed to broaden the scope of previous investigations from one basin to a larger area to reveal the similarities or differences of basins response to fire events depending on the size of catchments, share of burnt area and Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences. Semenova et al.: The changes of hydrological response after forest fires
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