This study is an investigation into the roles of wildfire and changing agricultural practices in controlling the inter-decadal scale trends of suspended sediment production from semi-arid mountainous rivers. In the test case, a decreasing trend in suspended sediment concentrations was found in the lower Salinas River, California between 1967 and...
The occurrence of two wildfires separated by 31 yr in the chaparral-dominated Arroyo Seco watershed (293 km²) of California provides a unique opportunity to evaluate the effects of wildfire on suspended-sediment yield. Here, we compile discharge and suspended-sediment sampling data from before and after the fires and show that the...