By Abigail Popple, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter The Rocky Mountain Goat
When wildfires tear through northern B.C., what most people notice are their surface-level impacts: trees burned, smoky skies, damaged infrastructure. But there are also less visible impacts on the landscape, starting with the ground beneath our feet.
Soil is a complex system of microorganisms, decaying organic material, water and minerals. The impacts of wildfire on soil are not yet well-understood - but two scientists at the University of Northern B.C. are digging in thanks to a Discovery Grant from the federal Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.
Senior research scientist, Dr. Raquel Portes, specializes in studying how to measure soil erosion, and how climate and land use affect erosion.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
When Portes began working at UNBC in 2024 - the year after B.C.'s worst recorded wildfire season - she decided to apply that expertise to the effects of wildfire on erosion.
"Considering that UNBC is a university located in the north, and for the north, my idea was to study real problems of the region," Portes said, adding that the results of her research into wildfire's effects on erosion can help broaden soil scientists' understanding of wildfire in other parts of the world, too.
Her colleague and fellow soil scientist, Dr. Diogo Spinola, has a similar story. As an Assistant Professor of Forest Soils at UNBC, Spinola's research focuses on how soil sequesters carbon. Along with trees, seagrass and the ocean, soil stores carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere for thousands of years.
Like Portes, Spinola began working at UNBC in 2024 and watched as 447 fires raged in the Prince George Fire Centre that summer. Moving from a job with the U.S. Forest Service in Juneau, Alaska, which is typically at low risk of wildfires, he wondered how he could use his research on soil to understand the impacts of wildfire.
"Forests in British Columbia - the boreal forest, the coastal rainforest - are some of the most important carbon sinks worldwide. These are extremely important forests for carbon regulation," he said. "Understanding these processes and mechanisms that make them one of the most valuable parts of our ecosystem can help us to guide land use or understanding how natural and human disturbances can impact these processes."
When soil is disturbed by forces like wildfire - or how humans alter the land - that could have ramifications all the way into earth's atmosphere, according to Spinola.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
"Instead of putting carbon deep in the ground, you're starting to put it back into the atmosphere, enhancing warming, enhancing extreme climate events. You just create this feedback loop," he said.
While carbon sequestration and erosion are understood in broad strokes, Portes and Spinola say there's a lack of research when it comes to wildfire's impacts on soil.
"It's a huge gap in the literature. Nobody was studying the effects of wildfires on the erosion process here in B.C.," Portes said.
Spinola added that wildfires can impact the soil itself, but also the types of vegetation that grow throughout forests - because plants are partially responsible for getting carbon into the soil, a change in vegetation may mean a change in how much carbon is being stored. This can add up to an avalanche of effects on the carbon cycle, Spinola says.
Understanding those effects can help ensure responsible land use and forest management, he added.
"For example, there's been a huge debate on whether we should plant more aspens instead of spruce because aspens are less vulnerable to wildfire," Spinola said. "But what we don't know yet is if the carbon that aspens put into the ground is more vulnerable to decomposition than the spruce."
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
When organic material in the soil decomposes faster, it means more CO2 is released into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change, Spinola said.
In the case of erosion, wildfire also has unstudied downstream impacts, according to Portes.
"We don't know how wildfires influence those processes - erosion, sedimentation," she said. "When you have high erosion rates, materials can be transported through streams to other areas of the landscape, and they can damage, for instance, infrastructure. They can trigger landslides. They can trigger flooding."
"In this research, we want to understand what is the impact on soil structure and how much time it takes for those two phases [erosion and sedimentation] to stabilize after the wildfire," she continued.
That research can help policymakers and communities develop long-term restoration strategies and identify impacts on soil properties, the chemical processes soil plays a role in, and vegetation recovery, according to Portes. It may even help protect salmon, whose habitat gets destroyed when landslides wash material into bodies of water that covers the fine sediment where salmon lay their eggs, she said.
And while soil varies from region to region, research on wildfires can have an international impact, Portes and Spinola agree.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
"The impacts of wildfires [on soil] are not well-studied enough to be included in long-scale models for planetary emissions," Spinola said. "From the broader level of the scientific community down to the policymaker level... this is definitely going to be important."
Federal funding helps make their research possible, and as the U.S. slashes funding for researchers like them, Portes and Spinola are watching with concern. Both scientists encourage Canadians to support policies that promote research.
"Our results are public - this is done for the public good," Spinola said. "Supporting politicians whose policies support science-based information, that impacts our ability to do research and for this research to have good impacts for communities."
ONTARIO NOW NEWSLETTER Get our free new weekly newsletter
Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request.
There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again.
Please enter a valid email address. Sign Up Yes, I'd also like to receive customized content suggestions and promotional messages from thepeterboroughexaminer.com.
You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply.
ONTARIO NOW NEWSLETTER You're signed up! You'll start getting Ontario Now in your inbox soon.
Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page.