Fire reduces dry season low flows in a subtropical highland of central Argentina
- Cingolani, Ana María
- Poca, María
- Whitworth Hulse, Juan Ignacio
- Giorgis, Melisa Adriana
- Vaieretti, Maria Victoria
- Herrero, María Lucrecia
- Navarro Ramos, Silvia Elisa
- Renison, Daniel
DOIAbstract
Wildfires are recurrent in seasonally-dry ecosystems; however, their effects on streamflows at the end of the dry season (low flows) are not well understood. The infiltration-evapotranspiration trade-off hypothesis postulates that when vegetation cover is lost or degraded, low flows in the following dry season are reduced due to impaired water infiltration and storage in soils during the wet season, which surpass gains due to diminished evapotranspiration. We tested this hypothesis in the context of vegetation loss produced by fire. For this purpose, we seized a wildfire in a subtropical highland of central Argentina and selected 12 burnt and 12 unburnt catchments of 15–60 ha. We measured low flows at the outlet point of each catchment in t...
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