PFHydro: A New Watershed-Scale Model for Post-Fire Runoff Simulation

Runoff increases after wildfires that burn vegetation and create a condition of soil-water repellence (SWR). A new post-fire watershed hydrological model, PFHydro, was created to explicitly simulate vegetation interception and SWR effects for four burn severity categories: high, medium, low severity...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental modelling & software : with environment data news 2020-01, Vol.123 (C), p.104555, Article 104555
Main Authors: Wang, Jun, Stern, Michelle A., King, Vanessa M., Alpers, Charles N., Quinn, Nigel W.T., Flint, Alan L., Flint, Lorraine E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Computer simulation
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Hydrologic models
Hydrology
Hydrophobicity
Interception
Modelling
Moisture content
Post-fire runoff simulation
Runoff
Scale models
Soil conditions
Soil water
Soil water repellence
Surface runoff
Vegetation
Watershed model
Watersheds
Wildfire effects
Wildfires
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Summary:Runoff increases after wildfires that burn vegetation and create a condition of soil-water repellence (SWR). A new post-fire watershed hydrological model, PFHydro, was created to explicitly simulate vegetation interception and SWR effects for four burn severity categories: high, medium, low severity and unburned. The model was applied to simulate post-fire runoff from the Upper Cache Creek Watershed in California, USA. Nash–Sutcliffe modeling efficiency (NSE) was used to assess model performance. The NSE was 0.80 and 0.88 for pre-fire water years (WY) 2000 and 2015, respectively. NSE was 0.88 and 0.93 for WYs 2016 (first year post-fire) and 2017 respectively. The simulated percentage of surface runoff in total runoff of WY 2016 was about six times that of pre-fire WY 2000 and three times that of WY 2015. The modeling results suggest that SWR is an important factor for post-fire runoff generation. The model was successful at simulating SWR behavior. •A new physically based model to simulate post-fire runoff at a watershed scale.•Four burn severity categories considered: high, medium, low and unburned.•Explicitly simulated vegetation interception and fire-induced, soil water repellence effects.•Model incorporates both saturation-excess and infiltration-excess runoff generation mechanisms.•Model calibrated and validated for a wildfire-prone watershed in California, USA.
ISSN:1364-8152
1873-6726
DOI:10.1016/j.envsoft.2019.104555