Can straw-biochar mulching mitigate erosion of wildfire-degraded soils under extreme rainfall?

Abstract

High severity wildfires cause a drastic alteration of soil carbon cycling – both oxidising and thermally altering soil organic matter (SOM) - and usually are followed by strong runoff and erosion events. To restore wildfire-degraded soils, SOM needs to be rebuilt while soil erosion is prevented. Post-fire straw mulching has been shown to mitigate soil erosion by providing a protective cover against rainsplash. However, SOM takes many decades or centuries to rebuilt naturally. Biochar, co-applied with straw to the soil surface can replace the SOM of the O-horizon, while the stabilised soil – by straw mulching – may gain in SOM naturally and by downward movement of biochar.

We conducted a field study to test if straw-only and straw-biochar co-application could restore soils degraded by wildfire in one high burn severity (HBS) and one moderate burn severity (MBS) study area in southern Portugal and Spain, respectively, by monitoring erosion and SOM for the most intense rainfall period of the first post-fire year. Burned sites were characterized for soil and sediment physical properties, TOC content, SOM quality by thermogravimetry (DTG) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR 13C) spectroscopy.

Straw-biochar mulching significantly reduced soil erosion by 76% and 65% in the HBS and MBS sites, respectively, in both cases similar to the erosion reduction by straw-only mulching. DTG and NMR 13C indicated that a relatively small proportion of the biochar eroded, i.e. 0.7%, indicating that co-application of straw with biochar may help restore the SOC lost in the wildfire in the medium term. The amount of SOM eroded was lower with straw-biochar mulching than in the untreated plots for both study areas. Straw-biochar mulching mitigates erosion of wildfire-degraded soils under extreme rainfall, while a relatively small proportion of the biochar is lost by erosion. Future studies need to monitor medium term effects.