Triggering rainfall intensities for post-wildfire debris flows in the Sonoran Desertscrub plant community

Wildfire makes landscapes more vulnerable to debris flows by reducing soil infiltration capacity and decreasing vegetation cover. The extent which fire affects debris-flow processes depends on the severity of fire, climatology intense rainfall, pre-fire plant community, sediment supply, among other factors. As expands into new communities geographic regions, there is a corresponding need expand efforts document fire-induced changes their impacts processes. In recent years, several large wildfires have impacted portions Sonoran Desertscrub community in Arizona, USA, where has been historically infrequent. Following two these fires, we monitored activity at watershed scale quantified wildfire-driven hydraulic properties using in-situ measurements with mini disk tension infiltrometers. Results indicate that rainfall intensity-duration thresholds for initiation post-fire recently burned watersheds within are substantially greater than those nearby areas dominated communities, such as chaparral. provide insight impact it likely be impactful future help existing flow databases paucity observations.