NMHU Surface Water Nutrients per Severity 2012

Climate change is expected to increase wildfire severity in the Southwest.
Following large fires, surface water runoff and soils contributes high
concentrations of nutrients to water bodies and has the potential to impair surface
water quality and terrestrial systems. Although there is a considerable amount of
research on the effects of nutrients in surface water runoff and soils following a
fire, the need to directly investigate nutrient levels transported from various
severity classes is required. The purpose of this study is to investigate the
contributions of nitrite-nitrogen (NO2-), nitrate-nitrogen (NO3-) orthophosphate
(OP) levels from surface water runoff originating from various wildfire severity
classes from the Las Conchas fire in the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico. To complete
this task NO2-, NO3-, and (OP) concentrations will be determined from surface water
runoff and soils originating from predetermined high, moderate, low, mixed, and
control (unburned site) fire severity types. Fire severity site qualification was
determined in a previous study. We hypothesize that our results from the high
severity burn area will have the least contribution of NO2-, NO3-, and (OP) and
control will have the highest.