The composition, transport, and fate of soil organic matter and pyrogenic carbon after prescribed burning
EMSL Project ID
60458
Abstract
Prescribed burning has exponentially increased in the United States over the past five years due to growing research into its use for land management and recent changes in legislation. While the impacts of wildfire on soil organic matter (SOM) composition have been well described, the alterations in SOM with prescribed burning need further investigation. This proposed work would describe alterations in SOM under differing prescribed burn regimes (1- , 2-, 3-year fire return intervals) through the use of advanced spectroscopic techniques (nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and hyperfine sublevel correlation spectroscopy) available through the Environmental and Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL). In addition to shifts in bulk SOM composition, alterations in leaching and hydrologic regimes post-fire can cause alterations in the organic matter that is transported from terrestrial to aquatic systems. To better understand how prescribed burning impacts organic matter (OM) in aquatic systems, OM will be extracted from bulk soils with water. These aqueous OM samples will be analyzed for basic chemical characteristics, including pH, bulk carbon and nitrogen, and nutrient content, along with 1H NMR spectroscopy. The combination of these methods will yield detailed descriptions of the OM composition and will be used to monitor shifts in OM transport post-burn. Altogether, the integrated results from this proposed work will lead to significant advancement in our understanding of the role of prescribed burning in controlling SOM composition and fate as it is transported through a soil and to adjoining aquatic systems. These results will have implications for the management of soil for carbon sequestration and water quality.
Project Details
Project type
Limited Scope
Start Date
2022-06-06
End Date
2022-08-05
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator