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Combined effect of fire and water scarcity on vegetation patterns in arid lands

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  • Ursino, Nadia
  • Cristina Rulli, M.

Abstract

In many arid zones around the word, the vegetation spontaneously forms regular patterns to optimize the use of the scarce water resources. The patterns act as early warning signal that fragile ecosystems may suddenly undergo irreversible shifts, thus, interpreting the structural shape of vegetation patterns is crucial to deciphering the ecosystem history and its expected further development. The sudden and irreversible shift of delicate ecosystems as a consequence of minor variation of the climatic forcing has been studied extensively in the past. The attitude of the ecosystem to recover after a catastrophic event, such as fire, did not receive as much attention so far. Here we modelled fire, as a sudden shift of the ecosystem state variables and functionality and evaluated post-fire scenarios under the hypothesis that two major feedbacks shaped the vegetation patterns: a positive feedback between preferential infiltration and plant growth, and a second feedback between infiltration and vegetation burning. A simple model solving a set of partial differential equations for soil moisture, plant biomass, surface water and dead biomass balance predicted significantly diverse post-fire vegetation patterns depending on the fire severity and on the degree of soil water repellency induced by the vegetation burning.

Suggested Citation

  • Ursino, Nadia & Cristina Rulli, M., 2010. "Combined effect of fire and water scarcity on vegetation patterns in arid lands," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 221(19), pages 2353-2362.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:221:y:2010:i:19:p:2353-2362
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2010.06.018
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ursino, Nadia, 2009. "Above and below ground biomass patterns in arid lands," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 220(11), pages 1411-1418.
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    Cited by:

    1. Gabriele Grifò, 2023. "Vegetation Patterns in the Hyperbolic Klausmeier Model with Secondary Seed Dispersal," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-14, February.
    2. Consolo, Giancarlo & Grifó, Gabriele & Valenti, Giovanna, 2022. "Dryland vegetation pattern dynamics driven by inertial effects and secondary seed dispersal," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 474(C).
    3. Rukea Al-hasn & Raed Almuhammad, 2022. "Burned area determination using Sentinel-2 satellite images and the impact of fire on the availability of soil nutrients in Syria," Journal of Forest Science, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 68(3), pages 96-106.
    4. Currò, C. & Grifò, G. & Valenti, G., 2023. "Turing patterns in hyperbolic reaction-transport vegetation models with cross-diffusion," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).

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