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Characterization, Quantification and Compound-specific Isotopic Analysis of Pyrogenic Carbon Using Benzene Polycarboxylic Acids (BPCA)
Published on: May 16, 2016
Decoupled mobilization of organic carbon and nitrogen in aged wildfire ashes
Travis Numan1, Abrar Shahriar1, Srinidhi Lokesh1
1Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Nevada, 1664 N. Virginia St, Reno, NV, 89557, USA.
Abstract:
In this work, we studied the mobility of organic carbon (OC) and nitrogen (N) in ashes and soils 2 years after major wildfires in the northern California/Nevada region (Dixie, Beckwourth, and Caldor fires) in the United States. The mobile fraction of OC ranged between 0.009 and 0.114 for ashes and 0.002 - 0.582 for background soils. The mobility of OC exhibited a significant negative correlation with the aromatic fraction in mobile OC for 2-year samples, but such correlation was not present for 0-year samples, indicating an important role of aromatic OC in its mobility after aging. The mobile fraction of N ranged 0.052 - 0.118 for ashes after 2 years. NO2- concentrations were much higher for some of 2-year samples compared to 0-year samples, indicating denitrification during the aging of ashes. The dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) mobilized from ashes after 2 years was much higher than for 0-year samples. The mobile fraction of N was not correlated with OC fraction, suggesting that for the long-term impact, mobile OC cannot be used to predict the mobile fraction of N. While the mobile fraction of OC and N were decoupled after 2 years of aging, redox reactions in OC played an important role for the mobility of OC and N. The impact of aging on the mobility of OC and N was closely related to the aromatic OC fraction in the mobile phase. Overall, 2 years after the wildfires, the total mobile OC and N in ashes and soils under ashes were higher than control soils, which raises concern for water quality and watershed function. These findings offer novel insights into the processes governing the mobilization of OC and N a few years following wildfires and the critical physicochemical properties of ashes and soils regulating the mobility of nutritional elements, OC and N.
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