Diana C. S. Vieira

European Commission | ec · Joint Research Centre (JRC)

Annually, millions of hectares of land are affected by wildfires worldwide, disrupting ecosystems functioning by affecting on-site vegetation, soil, and above- and belowground biodiversity, but also triggering erosive off-site impacts such as water-bodies contamination or mudflows. Here, we present a soil erosion assessment following the 2017's wil...

Wildfires are a recurrent and increasing threat in mainland Portugal, where over 4.5 million hectares of forests and scrublands have burned over the last 38 years. These fire-affected landscapes have suffered an intensification of soil erosion processes, which can negatively affect soil carbon storage, reduce fertility and forest productivity, and...

Wildfires are an increasing threat in the Mediterranean region, causing frequent losses of goods and human lives. Not only are wildfires a concern due to their immediate effects on vegetation and soil, but they can also have substantial impacts on surface water quality. Approximately one-third of the world’s largest cities obtain their drinking wat...

Wildfires are known to be one of the main causes of soil erosion and land degradation, and their impacts on ecosystems and society are expected to increase in the future due to changes in climate and land use. It is therefore vital to mitigate the increased hydrological and erosive response after wildfires to maintain the sustainability of ecosyste...

In the near future, a higher occurrence of wildfires is expected due to climate change, carrying social, environmental, and economic implications. Such impacts are often associated with an increase of post‐fire hydrological and erosive responses, which are difficult to predict. Soil erosion models have been proven to be a valuable tool in the decis...

Soil erosion is a complex process involving multiple natural and anthropic agents, causing the deterioration of multiple components comprising soil health. Here, we provide an estimate of the spatial patterns of cropland susceptibility to erosion by sheet and rill, gully, wind, tillage, and root crops harvesting and report the co-occurrence of thes...

The EU Soil Observatory led a study targeting residues of active ingredients of pesticides used as crop protection products in soil samples collected from the 2018 LUCAS survey. This is the largest study providing a comprehensive characterisation on the extent of residues of active ingredients from pesticides in the soils of the EU. This work estab...

Over the last decades, the establishment of new fast-growing forest plantations has been prospering. Although the European continent has the lowest share worldwide of forest plantations out of its total forest area, the Portuguese reality contrasts this. Since the last century, eucalypt plantations have increased widely in Portugal, and nowadays, i...

Wildfires usually increase the hydrological and erosive response of forest areas, carrying high environmental, human, cultural, and financial on-and off-site effects. Post-fire soil erosion control measures have been proven effective at mitigating such responses, especially at the slope scale, but there is a knowledge gap as to how cost-effective t...

The study presented here builds on previous synthetic aperture radar (SAR) burnt area estimation models and presents the first U-Net (a convolutional network architecture for fast and precise segmentation of images) combined with ResNet50 (Residual Networks used as a backbone for many computer vision tasks) encoder architecture used with SAR, Digit...

Land degradation is the persistent reduction in the capacity of the land to support human and other life on Earth (IPBES 2018). This process jeopardizes the provision of ecosystem services. The SDG 15, Life on Land, includes efforts to sustainably manage and recover natural ecosystems and restore degraded land and soil. Under the umbrella of SDG 15...

Wildfires are a recurring hazard in forested catchments representing a major threat to water security worldwide. Wildfires impacts on water quality have been thoroughly addressed by the scientific community through field studies, laboratory experiments, and, to a lesser extent, the use of hydrological models. Nonetheless, models are important tools...

Scars left by wildfires are easily visible in the Mediterranean landscape and, like any wound, even those left by fires must be treated to regenerate properly. If not managed, spontaneous vegetation regeneration will eventually cover the affected area, restoring the hydrological cycle. The reforestation of burned stands, involving ploughing the lan...

Recently burnt areas typically reveal strong to extreme hydrological responses, as a consequence of loss of protective soil cover and heating-induced changes in topsoil properties. Soil water repellency (SWR) has frequently been referred to as one of the explanatory variables for fire-enhanced surface runoff generation but this has been poorly demo...

Wildfires are a recurrent and increasing threat in mainland Portugal, where over 4,5 million hectares of forests and scrublands have burned over the last 38 years. These fire-affected landscapes have suffered an intensification of soil erosion processes, which can negatively affect soil carbon storage, reduce fertility, forest productivity, and bec...

Changes in climate, land use, and land management impact the occurrence and severity of wildland fires in many parts of the world. This is particularly evident in Europe, where ongoing changes in land use have strongly modified fire patterns over the last decades. Although satellite data by the European Forest Fire Information System provide large-...

To gain a better understanding of the global application of soil erosion prediction models, we comprehensively reviewed relevant peer-reviewed research literature on soil-erosion modelling published between 1994 and 2017. We aimed to identify (i) the processes and models most frequently addressed in the literature, (ii) the regions within which mod...

To gain a better understanding of the global application of soil erosion prediction models, we comprehensively reviewed relevant peer-reviewed research literature on soil-erosion modelling published between 1994 and2017. We aimed to identify (i) the processes and models most frequently addressed in the literature, (ii) the regions within which mode...

Soil erosion can present a major threat to agriculture due to loss of soil, nutrients, and organic carbon. Therefore, soil erosion modelling is one of the steps used to plan suitable soil protection measures and detect erosion hotspots. A bibliometric analysis of this topic can reveal research patterns and soil erosion modelling characteristics tha...

Wildfires are a global phenomenon responsible for tremendous environmental, social and economic losses, which combined with land abandonment, absence of appropriate land management, and urban planning, are expected to exacerbate land degradation and deteriorate the ecosystems services. But now, wildfires are becoming a persistent threat as shown b...

Systematic bibliometric investigations are useful to evaluate and compare the scientific impact of journal papers, book chapters and conference proceedings. Such studies allow the detection of emerging research topics, the analyses of cooperation networks, and the collection of in-depth insights into a specific research topic. In the presented work...

Forest fires have intensified in the Mediterranean area over the last decades, becoming increasingly destructive. Catastrophic wildfires, such as the ones that occurred on the Portuguese territory during 2017, have emphasized the need for developing management tools capable of rapidly assessing their impact on downstream water bodies. This study fo...

Integrated assessment (IA) modelling can be an effective tool to gain insight into the dynamics of coupled earth system (land use, climate etc.) and socio-economic components. Quantifying and communicating uncertainties is a challenge of any scientific assessment, but is here magnified by the complex and boundary-crossing nature of IA models. Under...

No âmbito da recuperação das matas litorais atingidas pelos incêndios de 15 de outubro de 2017, o ICNF tem promovido um vasto conjunto de ações e iniciativas para assegurar a gestão sustentável dessas áreas, de que se destaca a promoção da constituição da Comissão Científica do Programa de Recuperação das Matas Litorais, com a participação de vária...

The aim of this session is to join researchers that study fire effects on the ecosystems, from prevention to suppression, wildfire modelling, climate change impacts on fire and post-wildfire impacts, either by means of laboratory, field experiments, or numerical modelling. It is time for scientists to join their strengths to give accurate answers t...

Mosses and wildfires are ubiquitous occurrences. Their correlation has been assessed in few studies. Mosses have been pointed as pioneer species in post-fire environments. However, reasons for moss crusting in post-wildfire soils and their ecosystem role in preventing soil erosion have not been quantitatively assessed. Moss crusts have quickly deve...

Mulching has amply proven its effectiveness to mitigate post-fire soil erosion but its impacts on soil organic matter (SOM) quality and quantity continue poorly studied. The present study addressed this knowledge gap for a eucalypt plantation in central Portugal that had been burnt and, immediately after the wildfire, mulched with 13.6 Mg ha⁻¹ of e...

Publicação feita na Revista Indústria e Ambiente nº 112, setembro/ outubro 2018 No dossier "Modelação Ambiental e Sistema de Apoio à Decisão"

The impacts of wildfires on the hydrological and erosive response of forest ecosystems have been extensively studied worldwide. Nevertheless, few studies have measured post-fire runoff and erosion over large time scales in Mediterranean-climate type environments and even fewer studies considered the effects of pre-fire land management practices on...

Wildfires are well-known to increase runoff and erosion during the initial stages of the window-of-disturbance, and mulching has been widely documented to effectively minimize this impact. However, the relationship between the rate of mulch application and erosion reduction is poorly studied, in spite of its potential importance for optimizing mulc...

Research has been undertaken on the hydrological and erosional impact of forest fires, but remarkably little work has been conducted on salvage logging operations that often follow them. We assessed the effects of mechanical salvage logging following wildfire on soil physical properties, ground cover, and runoff and erosion response on a eucalypt s...

Soil losses by erosion have been highlighted as a major soil threat and an important driver of desertification. Post-wildfire environments can reveal strong to extreme responses in runoff generation and associated sediment losses (Keizer et al., 2016). Application of mulch as a protective soil cover has proved to be an effective measure against pos...

Logging is the most common management practice after wildfires in forested areas. Clearcutting is undertaken to recover burnt timber resources, to control resprouting (e.g. in the case of eucalypts) and to reduce possible insect infestation hazard (e.g. in the case of maritime pine). Still, relatively little is known about the combined effect of wi...

Amongst other environmental impacts, wildfire is widely regarded as the principal agent of soil erosion and land degradation of woodlands and shrublands. Fire-enhanced runoff and erosion are commonly attributed to the (partial) removal of the protective soil cover by vegetation and litter, in combination with heating-induced changes in soil propert...

In the past decades, Portugal like several other Mediterranean countries has been affected by frequent wildfires. This has led to various field tests of post-fire soil conservation measures and, in particular, mulching with forest slash residues. While forest residue mulching was shown to be highly effective in reducing post-fire erosion, its side...

The impacts of forest fires on runoff and soil erosion have been assessed by many studies, so the effects of fires on the hydrological and geomorphological processes of burnt forest areas, globally and in the Mediterranean region, are well established. Few studies, however, have assessed post-fire runoff and erosion on large time scales. In additio...

Forest fires are a recurrent phenomenon in Mediterranean forests, with impacts for human landscapes and communities, which must be understood before they can be managed. This study used the LISEM physically based model (LISEM) to simulate rainfall-runoff response, under soil water repellent (SWR) conditions and different stages of vegetation recove...

This study is the first comprehensive testing of a novel plastic optical fibre turbidity sensor with runoff samples collected in the field and, more specifically, with a total of 158 streamflow samples and 925 overland flow samples from a recently burnt forest area in north-central Portugal, collected mainly during the first year after the wildfire...

Wildfires are a frequent phenomenon in European Mediterranean ecosystems. Fire-induced changes in the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of the soils and the damaging or even complete removal of vegetation influence the post fire hydrology of catchments. Especially the first few years after a wildfire are marked by increased runoff...

The revised Morgan-Morgan-Finney (MMF) model was used as a modelling approach, which has performed reasonably well to estimate soil losses for burned areas in humid Mediterranean forests in Portugal, and NW Spain. Simple model enhancement approaches are applied to recently burned pine and eucalypt forested areas in north-central Portugal and to sub...

Forest fires can greatly increase runoff and surface erosion rates. Post-fire soil erosion control measures are intended to minimize this response and facilitate ecosystem recovery. In a few recent cases, hydromulch has been applied, and this consists of a mixture of organic fibers, water and seeds. The objectives of this research were to (i) analy...

It is well-documented that wildfires can markedly increase runoff generation and the associated transport of sediments. There continue to be important knowledge gaps, however, with respect to the underlying hydrological and erosion processes, in part due to the difficulties of measuring sediment concentrations with high-temporal resolution. Commerc...

The effects of two different soil rehabilitation treatments on runoff, infiltration, erosion and species diversity were evaluated in a shrubland area in Galicia (NW Spain) after an experimental fire by means of rainfall simulations. The treatments compared were: seeding, seeding + mulching and control (untreated). Rainfall simulations were conducte...

It is commonly accepted that fire severity plays an important role in post-fire erosion risk. This reflects not only also the degree of consumption of the protective vegetation and litter cover but also heating-induced changes in soil properties, which can increase soil erodibility as well as decrease infiltration. Fire severity is therefore also a...

The effects of two different soil rehabilitation treatments on runoff, infiltration, erosion and species diversity were evaluated in a shrubland area in Galicia (NW Spain) after an experimental fire by means of rainfall simulations. The treatments compared were: seeding, seeding þ mulching and control (untreated). Rainfall simulations were conducte...

Wildfires can have important impacts on hydrological and soil erosion processes, due to the destruction of vegetation cover and changes to soil properties. According to Shakesby and Doerr (2006), these wildfire effects are: i) much better known at small spatial scales (especially erosion plots) than at the scale of catchments; ii) much better studi...

O presente trabalho tem como objectivo avaliar a adequabilidade de dois modelos empíricos de erosão, para o mapeamento do risco de erosão pós-fogo à escala da encosta, com base em Sistemas de Informação Geográfica. Foi desenvolvido no âmbito do projecto EROSFIRE, que pretende avaliar as vantagens e desvantagens de experiências de campo de simulação...

portuguesO presente artigo apresenta resultados preliminares da monitorizacao de escorrencia e erosao do solo apos incendio, numa micro-bacia hidrografica no centro de Portugal. Os dados recolhidos permitem avaliar os diferentes processos que governam a resposta hidrologica e a erosao a diferentes escalas espaciais, micro parcela ( EnglishThis arti...

Although the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) and the revised Morgan–Morgan–Finney (MMF) are well-known models, not much information is available as regards their suitability in predicting post-fire soil erosion in forest soils. The lack of information is even more pronounced as regards post-fire rehabilitation treatments. This study co...

The present work has as overall objective to evaluate the suitability of two easily-applied erosion models for slope-scale erosion risk mapping, using a Geographic Information System, following wildfire. It was carried out in the framework of the EROSFIRE project, which, in a nutshell, wants to assess the advantages and disadvantages of field rainf...

Forest fires destroy the vegetation cover, increasing the propensity for soil erosion while vegetation recovers. Previous work in central Portugal has shown the relationship between vegetation, litter cover and soil properties (especially soil water repellence) and the increase in runoff generation and soil loss, with measurements made at the micro...

Wildfires can cause significant changes to hydrological and soil erosion processes, through the destruction of vegetation cover and changes to soil properties. Modeling soil erosion in burnt areas is still a challenge, since most erosion models are built for agricultural fields and usually present a poor performance when applied to burnt areas. An...