Wildfires are devastating events that destroy forests, burn homes and force people to leave their communities. They also have a profound impact on local ecosystems. But there is another problem that has been largely overlooked until now. When rain falls on the charred landscapes, it increases surface runoff and soil erosion that can last for decades, according to a new study published in Nature Geoscience.
On average, wildfires burn approximately 4 million square kilometers of land per year, an area equivalent to the size of the European Union. Despite this, there hasn’t been a global long-term assessment of how these fires affect soil erosion over time. So researchers from the European Commission’s Joint Research Center and the University of Basel, Switzerland, studied two decades’ worth of data to compile the world’s first global map of post-fire soil erosion.
The team used a sophisticated computer model called RUSLE (Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation), which they adapted for post-fire conditions to calculate how much soil moves based on factors such as vegetation cover and rainfall intensity. They combined this with satellite data of global wildfires from 2001 to 2019 and compared these areas with how the land looked before the flames took hold.
