RAPID: Resilience of Soil Health and Hydrology to the Palisades and Eaton Wildfires, Los Angeles

Wildfires, including the 2025 Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles, California, have devastating effects on communities, ecosystems, and infrastructure. The severity of these impacts is driven, in part, by how wildfire alters the soil properties that drive flooding and landslides. Yet, the impact of wildfire on soil health and hydrology remains underexplored.

Understanding these impacts is crucial for informing disaster preparedness, land management, and restoration strategies, particularly in regions increasingly prone to wildfires. This project will investigate how fire altered soil properties and hydrological processes in regions impacted by the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles, as well as the resilience of these systems over time.

This project will produce essential information to enhance early warning systems for hydrological disasters, such as flooding and landslides, which are exacerbated by fire-induced soil degradation. Additionally, the study will provide valuable insights for policymakers, conservation agencies, and local communities on effective post-fire recovery measures.

The project also fosters educational advancement by offering graduate and undergraduate students hands-on experience in field research and laboratory analysis.

This research will assess wildfire-induced changes in soil properties and hydrological functions across different burn severities, vegetation types, and landscape positions. Specifically, the project will characterize the spatial patterns of soil degradation and hydrologic change following wildfires. The project will also determine how rates of recovery in soil health and hydrology vary across severely burnt, moderately burnt, and unburnt areas.

The project team will compare spatial field measurements in areas affected by the recent (Palisades and Eaton) fires to those impacted by older fires. Measurements through time will be made in representative sites under severe, moderate, and unburnt conditions. Data collection will include soil physical and chemical properties, infiltration capacity, saturated hydraulic conductivity, nutrient availability, soil moisture profiles, plant community composition, and soil microfauna.

The findings will advance scientific understanding of wildfire impacts on soil health and hydrological resilience, contributing to the fields of hydrology, soil science, and fire ecology.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.