New Mexico Geological Society Annual Spring Meeting — Abstracts

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 (NO^2-), nitrate-nitrogen (NO^3-) 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 NO^2-, NO^3-, 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 NO^2-, NO^3-, and (OP) and control will have the highest.