Over the last three decades, California has seen increasing erosion after major wildfires — a phenomenon that not only endangers water resources and ecosystems, but is also likely to worsen with climate change, according to researchers.

A new study from the U.S. Geological Survey documented a tenfold increase in post-fire hillside erosion in Northern California from the late 1980s to the 2010s, with the majority of the largest sediment-producing fires occurring in the last decade.