Effects of wildfires on peak discharges in watersheds

It is acknowledged that wildfires can alter hydrologic processes in watersheds, increasing runoff peak discharge, which is one of the most important hydrological variables used in water resources applications. Then it is evident that usual rainfall-runoff methods should be modified in some of their components in order to model the different watershed response in burned condition. This paper contains some considerations on the estimation of the SCS runoff Curve Number, needed for the calculation of peak discharge in the small urban basin of San Giuliano in L’Aquila (Italy), which has been recently affected by a wildfire, causing a significant reduction in the forest cover.