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Vegetation fires in temperate upland heaths: environmental impacts, recovery, and management implications / ASHLEIGH HARPER

Swansea University Author: ASHLEIGH HARPER

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DOI (Published version): 10.23889/SUthesis.56983

Abstract

The impacts of wildfires are diverse and highly variable dependent on location, habitat type, site conditions and fire severity. Wildfire impact research is however, limited across large areas of the UK presenting an issue for the creation of effective site-specific management planning in a number o...

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Published: Swansea 2020
Institution: Swansea University
Degree level: Doctoral
Degree name: Ph.D
Supervisor: Doerr, Stefan ; Santin, Cristina ; Froyd, Cindy
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa56983
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first_indexed 2021-05-28T13:47:24Z
last_indexed 2021-05-29T03:21:49Z
id cronfa56983
recordtype RisThesis
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spelling 2021-05-28T16:32:58.7312911 v2 56983 2021-05-28 Vegetation fires in temperate upland heaths: environmental impacts, recovery, and management implications 1b470b86ef82fb9355bb8c66bd7d088b ASHLEIGH HARPER ASHLEIGH HARPER true false 2021-05-28 The impacts of wildfires are diverse and highly variable dependent on location, habitat type, site conditions and fire severity. Wildfire impact research is however, limited across large areas of the UK presenting an issue for the creation of effective site-specific management planning in a number of areas and habitat types. To address this issue in the Brecon Beacons National Park (south Wales), research was conducted assessing post-fire: i) vegetation community composition; ii) soil physical and chemical properties; iii) ash chemical composition and toxicity. The primary conclusions from this research suggests vegetation community composition and soil physicochemical properties are able to recover relatively rapidly to long unburnt conditions (>11-years and >3-years, respectively) following wildfire events in dry heaths with shallow organic soils. The fast rates of post-fire vegetation recovery across the assessed sites are likely due to the species-poor, dwarf-shrub dominated, pre-fire conditions reducing the time required for the vegetation community to return to this low species diversity. Soil physicochemical properties showed limited impact from the fires, likely due to the high moisture retention of the surface organic soil layer having resulted in limited soil heating and depth penetration. Wider environmental concerns are raised by the ash composition, which showed remarkably high concentrations of potentially toxic substances such as, metallic elements (e.g. Fe, Mn, Pb, Zn and As) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), compared to ash from other environments and vegetation types. These conclusions pose important questions about the future of temperate heaths, the priorities of future upland management and highlight numerous areas for further research. E-Thesis Swansea Fire science, wildfire, prescribed fire, post-fire recovery, wildfire management 16 12 2020 2020-12-16 10.23889/SUthesis.56983 COLLEGE NANME COLLEGE CODE Swansea University Doerr, Stefan ; Santin, Cristina ; Froyd, Cindy Doctoral Ph.D 2021-05-28T16:32:58.7312911 2021-05-28T14:41:28.8586496 Faculty of Science and Engineering School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Geography ASHLEIGH HARPER 1 56983__20025__8ddf6205b47845b9ba9ce8ebb522310b.pdf Harper_Ashleigh_R_PhD_Thesis_Final_Redacted_Signature.pdf 2021-05-28T16:13:01.6720704 Output 4947644 application/pdf E-Thesis – open access true Copyright: The author, Ashleigh Russell Harper, 2020. true eng
title Vegetation fires in temperate upland heaths: environmental impacts, recovery, and management implications
spellingShingle Vegetation fires in temperate upland heaths: environmental impacts, recovery, and management implications
ASHLEIGH HARPER
title_short Vegetation fires in temperate upland heaths: environmental impacts, recovery, and management implications
title_full Vegetation fires in temperate upland heaths: environmental impacts, recovery, and management implications
title_fullStr Vegetation fires in temperate upland heaths: environmental impacts, recovery, and management implications
title_full_unstemmed Vegetation fires in temperate upland heaths: environmental impacts, recovery, and management implications
title_sort Vegetation fires in temperate upland heaths: environmental impacts, recovery, and management implications
author_id_str_mv 1b470b86ef82fb9355bb8c66bd7d088b
author_id_fullname_str_mv 1b470b86ef82fb9355bb8c66bd7d088b_***_ASHLEIGH HARPER
author ASHLEIGH HARPER
author2 ASHLEIGH HARPER
format E-Thesis
publishDate 2020
institution Swansea University
doi_str_mv 10.23889/SUthesis.56983
college_str Faculty of Science and Engineering
hierarchytype
hierarchy_top_id facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
department_str School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Geography{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Science and Engineering{{{_:::_}}}School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Geography
document_store_str 1
active_str 0
description The impacts of wildfires are diverse and highly variable dependent on location, habitat type, site conditions and fire severity. Wildfire impact research is however, limited across large areas of the UK presenting an issue for the creation of effective site-specific management planning in a number of areas and habitat types. To address this issue in the Brecon Beacons National Park (south Wales), research was conducted assessing post-fire: i) vegetation community composition; ii) soil physical and chemical properties; iii) ash chemical composition and toxicity. The primary conclusions from this research suggests vegetation community composition and soil physicochemical properties are able to recover relatively rapidly to long unburnt conditions (>11-years and >3-years, respectively) following wildfire events in dry heaths with shallow organic soils. The fast rates of post-fire vegetation recovery across the assessed sites are likely due to the species-poor, dwarf-shrub dominated, pre-fire conditions reducing the time required for the vegetation community to return to this low species diversity. Soil physicochemical properties showed limited impact from the fires, likely due to the high moisture retention of the surface organic soil layer having resulted in limited soil heating and depth penetration. Wider environmental concerns are raised by the ash composition, which showed remarkably high concentrations of potentially toxic substances such as, metallic elements (e.g. Fe, Mn, Pb, Zn and As) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), compared to ash from other environments and vegetation types. These conclusions pose important questions about the future of temperate heaths, the priorities of future upland management and highlight numerous areas for further research.
published_date 2020-12-16T04:12:22Z
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score 10.998753

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