Post-wildfire Hydrological Response in an ENSO Dominated Environment

摘要: Elevated rates of erosion following wild-fires are often reported in the literature. The extent of the increase is usually related to the first rainfall events and sometimes to the prevailing rainfall-runoff conditions in the years following the fire. We set out to examine the rainfall-runoff response after several wild-fires over a 40-year period in the Nattai catchment, Sydney Basin, Australia, in order to quantify the hydrological response. The fires differed in the total area burnt (14 530 km2) and hence the degree of disturbance to the Nattai catchment (701 km2) but were chosen on the basis of having burnt the same area during each fire, thereby allowing us to compare between fires. Hourly instantaneous discharge from a gauging station in the lower part of the Nattai catchment was used to determine river flow and infer runoff. Daily rainfall totals from eight gauges throughout the catchment were used to determine rainfall events …