Wildfires affect land surface and post-fire geomorphological activity worldwide, increasing surface runoff and soil erosion. However, a global quantitative assessment considering the cumulative effect of several wildfires is still missing.

A paper titled with “Global estimation of post-fire soil erosion” published in “Nature Geoscience” present a global assessment of post-fire soil erosion, considering cumulative wildfire-driven geomorphological changes over the last two decades. The effort is led by Dr. Daniela C. S. Vieira, whose research tracks how wildfires reshape soil, water, and terrain.

The authors estimate global trends of post-fire soil erosion using a global database on wildfire occurrence and fire severity, and the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model together with the recovery of those burned landscapes by remote sensed data. Results show that when considering multiple wildfire events, global post-fire soil erosion accounts for 8.1 ± 0.72 Pg annually, representing 19% of the global soil erosion budget and an additional 5.1 ± 0.56 Pg soil erosion annually in comparison to pre-fire conditions. Moreover, soil erosion attributed to the first post-fire year represents 31% of the total soil erosion, whereas the remaining share can be attributed to previous wildfire occurrences. Globally, Africa dominates the global picture, most African fires rank low or moderate in burn severity, how strongly fire strips cover and soil, rather than high.

The findings show that fire-driven soil loss is a long-lasting global problem, therefore support post-fire management actions through better fire planning, recovery monitoring, and erosion control, towards the mitigation and restoration of affected areas and policies towards land-degradation neutrality.

The paper is available here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-025-01876-0#Fig2