Fuel types misrepresent forest structure and composition in interior British Columbia: a way forward.

IF 3.6 3区环境科学与生态学 Q1 ECOLOGY

Fire Ecology Pub Date : 2024-01-01 Epub Date: 2024-02-07 DOI:10.1186/s42408-024-00249-z

Jennifer N Baron, Paul F Hessburg, Marc-André Parisien, Gregory A Greene, Sarah E Gergel, Lori D Daniels

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background: A clear understanding of the connectivity, structure, and composition of wildland fuels is essential for effective wildfire management. However, fuel typing and mapping are challenging owing to a broad diversity of fuel conditions and their spatial and temporal heterogeneity. In Canada, fuel types and potential fire behavior are characterized using the Fire Behavior Prediction (FBP) System, which uses an association approach to categorize vegetation into 16 fuel types based on stand structure and composition. In British Columbia (BC), provincial and national FBP System fuel type maps are derived from remotely sensed forest inventory data and are widely used for wildfire operations, fuel management, and scientific research. Despite their widespread usage, the accuracy and applicability of these fuel type maps have not been formally assessed. To address this knowledge gap, we quantified the agreement between on-site assessments and provincial and national fuel type maps in interior BC.

Results: We consistently found poor correspondence between field assessment data and both provincial and national fuel types. Mismatches were particularly frequent for (i) dry interior ecosystems, (ii) mixedwood and deciduous fuel types, and (iii) post-harvesting conditions. For 58% of field plots, there was no suitable match to the extant fuel structure and composition. Mismatches were driven by the accuracy and availability of forest inventory data and low applicability of the Canadian FBP System to interior BC fuels.

Conclusions: The fuel typing mismatches we identified can limit scientific research, but also challenge wildfire operations and fuel management decisions. Improving fuel typing accuracy will require a significant effort in fuel inventory data and system upgrades to adequately represent the diversity of extant fuels. To more effectively link conditions to expected fire behavior outcomes, we recommend a fuel classification approach and emphasis on observed fuels and measured fire behavior data for the systems we seek to represent.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s42408-024-00249-z.

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燃料类型错误地反映了不列颠哥伦比亚省内陆地区的森林结构和组成：前进之路。

背景：清楚地了解野地燃料的连通性、结构和组成对于有效的野火管理至关重要。然而，由于燃料条件的广泛多样性及其时空异质性，燃料类型划分和绘图具有挑战性。在加拿大，燃料类型和潜在火灾行为是通过火灾行为预测（FBP）系统来描述的，该系统采用关联方法，根据林分结构和组成将植被分为 16 种燃料类型。在不列颠哥伦比亚省（BC 省），省级和国家级 FBP 系统燃料类型图来自遥感森林资源数据，被广泛用于野火行动、燃料管理和科学研究。尽管使用广泛，但这些燃料类型图的准确性和适用性尚未得到正式评估。为了填补这一知识空白，我们对不列颠哥伦比亚省内陆地区的现场评估与省级和国家级燃料类型图之间的一致性进行了量化：我们一致发现，现场评估数据与省级和国家级燃料类型之间的对应性很差。不匹配现象在以下方面尤为常见：(i) 干旱的内陆生态系统；(ii) 杂木和落叶燃料类型；(iii) 采伐后条件。在 58% 的野外地块中，没有与现存燃料结构和组成匹配的地块。造成不匹配的原因是森林资源清查数据的准确性和可用性，以及加拿大森林分类系统对不列颠哥伦比亚省内陆燃料的适用性较低：我们发现的燃料类型不匹配不仅会限制科学研究，还会给野火行动和燃料管理决策带来挑战。要提高燃料分类的准确性，需要在燃料清单数据和系统升级方面做出巨大努力，以充分反映现存燃料的多样性。为了更有效地将条件与预期的火灾行为结果联系起来，我们建议采用燃料分类方法，并将重点放在观测到的燃料和测量到的火灾行为数据上，以代表我们所寻求的系统：在线版本包含补充材料，可查阅 10.1186/s42408-024-00249-z。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Fire Ecology ECOLOGY-FORESTRY

CiteScore

6.20

自引率

7.80%

发文量

审稿时长

20 weeks

期刊介绍： Fire Ecology is the international scientific journal supported by the Association for Fire Ecology. Fire Ecology publishes peer-reviewed articles on all ecological and management aspects relating to wildland fire. We welcome submissions on topics that include a broad range of research on the ecological relationships of fire to its environment, including, but not limited to: Ecology (physical and biological fire effects, fire regimes, etc.) Social science (geography, sociology, anthropology, etc.) Fuel Fire science and modeling Planning and risk management Law and policy Fire management Inter- or cross-disciplinary fire-related topics Technology transfer products.