An ArcGIS Toolkit to Assist in Using Diqital Soil Data for BAER Erosion Hazard Ratings

摘要

After a wildfire, understandings landscape's response to precipitation is essential. Land that ha￡f6'een strjpped of its vegetation and soila that inhrbit infiltration create a situation that cart have disastrous effects, including severe erosion andlandslides. Increased sediment in streams from soil erosion can result in fish kills and degraded water quality. Soil scientists play a key rata in post-wildfire assessments and rehabilitation. The formal team assigned to assess pdst-fire landscape damage is known as a BAER (Burned Area Emergency Response) team. BAER teams must complete their assessment within 7 d of a fire's containment, and haying soil survey data available makes the job much easier. One of the tasks for. soil scientists on BAER teams is to assess the potential for erosion in areas damaged by the fire. The Smokey BEHR (BAER Erosion Hazard Rating) Toolkit for GIS isolates soil survey data within the fire penmeter and distills some of the most important soil attributes from SSURGO(Soif Survey Geographic) data into a readily usable format. Combined with burn severity information from a Burned Area Reflectance Classification (BARC) raster layer, areas with high erosion hazard can be quickly identified and targeted for treatment.