Fire EcologyPub Date : 2024-09-19DOI: 10.1186/s42408-024-00317-4
Harry A. Moore, Lesley A. Gibson, Dale G. Nimmo
{"title":"The influence of fire mosaics on mammal occurrence in north-western Australia","authors":"Harry A. Moore, Lesley A. Gibson, Dale G. Nimmo","doi":"10.1186/s42408-024-00317-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-024-00317-4","url":null,"abstract":"Understanding the relationship between fire and species habitat preferences is critical in an era of rapid environmental change. In northern Australia, large, intense, and frequent fires are thought to be a primary cause of mammal population declines, particularly through their influence on habitat suitability. Here, we used a large species presence database in combination with satellite-derived fire history data to assess the influence of fire attributes, including burn extent, frequency, and pyrodiversity, on the likelihood of occurrence of eight mammal species in north-west Western Australia. The likelihood of occurrence declined for some species with an increasing proportion of recently burnt habitat and increased for most species with an increasing proportion of long unburnt habitat. The occurrence of six species was negatively correlated with increasing fire frequency, while the occurrence of four species was positively correlated with increasing pyrodiversity. Our results indicate that fire likely plays an important role in influencing mammal occurrence in the Pilbara and support previous research indicating that frequent large-scale burns have a mostly negative impact on small to medium-sized mammals in northern Australia. To improve mammal habitat suitability, land managers should aim to reduce the extent of large late dry season burns and increase the availability of mature spinifex grasslands.","PeriodicalId":12273,"journal":{"name":"Fire Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142266422","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ultra-lightweight convolution-transformer network for early fire smoke detection","authors":"Shubhangi Chaturvedi, Chandravanshi Shubham Arun, Poornima Singh Thakur, Pritee Khanna, Aparajita Ojha","doi":"10.1186/s42408-024-00304-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-024-00304-9","url":null,"abstract":"Forests are invaluable resources, and fire is a natural process that is considered an integral part of the forest ecosystem. Although fire offers several ecological benefits, its frequent occurrence in different parts of the world has raised concerns in the recent past. Covering millions of hectares of forest land, these fire incidents have resulted in the loss of human lives, wild habitats, civil infrastructure, and severe damage to the environment. Around 90% of wildland fires have been caused by humans intentionally or unintentionally. Early detection of fire close to human settlements and wildlife centuries can help mitigate fire hazards. Numerous artificial intelligence-based solutions have been proposed in the past decade that prioritize the detection of fire smoke, as it can be caught through remote sensing and provide an early sign of wildland fire. However, most of these methods are either computationally intensive or suffer from a high false alarm rate. In this paper, a lightweight deep neural network model is proposed for fire smoke detection in images captured by satellites or other remote sensing sources. With only 0.6 million parameters and 0.4 billion floating point operations per second, the hybrid network of convolutional and vision transformer blocks efficiently detects smoke in normal and foggy environmental conditions. It outperforms seven state-of-the-art methods on four datasets, including a self-collected dataset from the “Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer” satellite imagery. The model achieves an accuracy of more than 99% on three datasets and 93.90% on the fourth dataset. The t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding of extracted features by the proposed model demonstrates its superior feature learning capabilities. It is remarkable that even a tiny occurrence of smoke covering just 2% of the satellite image area is efficiently detected by the model. With low memory and computational demands, the proposed model works exceedingly well, making it suitable for deployment in resource constrained devices for forest surveillance and early fire smoke detection.","PeriodicalId":12273,"journal":{"name":"Fire Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142266425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Fire EcologyPub Date : 2024-09-13DOI: 10.1186/s42408-024-00314-7
Sophie R. Bonner, Chad M. Hoffman, Rodman R. Linn, Wade T. Tinkham, Adam L. Atchley, Carolyn H. Sieg, J. Morgan Varner, Joseph J. O’Brien, J. Kevin Hiers
{"title":"Forest structural complexity and ignition pattern influence simulated prescribed fire effects","authors":"Sophie R. Bonner, Chad M. Hoffman, Rodman R. Linn, Wade T. Tinkham, Adam L. Atchley, Carolyn H. Sieg, J. Morgan Varner, Joseph J. O’Brien, J. Kevin Hiers","doi":"10.1186/s42408-024-00314-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-024-00314-7","url":null,"abstract":"Forest structural characteristics, the burning environment, and the choice of ignition pattern each influence prescribed fire behaviors and resulting fire effects; however, few studies examine the influences and interactions of these factors. Understanding how interactions among these drivers can influence prescribed fire behavior and effects is crucial for executing prescribed fires that can safely and effectively meet management objectives. To analyze the interactions between the fuels complex and ignition patterns, we used FIRETEC, a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics fire behavior model, to simulate fire behavior and effects across a range of horizontal and vertical forest structural complexities. For each forest structure, we then simulated three different prescribed fires each with a unique ignition pattern: strip-head, dot, and alternating dot. Forest structural complexity and ignition pattern affected the proportions of simulated crown scorch, consumption, and damage for prescribed fires in a dry, fire-prone ecosystem. Prescribed fires in forests with complex canopy structures resulted in increased crown consumption, scorch, and damage compared to less spatially complex forests. The choice of using a strip-head ignition pattern over either a dot or alternating-dot pattern increased the degree of crown foliage scorched and damaged, though did not affect the proportion of crown consumed. We found no evidence of an interaction between forest structural complexity and ignition pattern on canopy fuel consumption, scorch, or damage. We found that forest structure and ignition pattern, two powerful drivers of fire behavior that forest managers can readily account for or even manipulate, can be leveraged to influence fire behavior and the resultant fire effects of prescribed fire. These simulation findings have critical implications for how managers can plan and perform forest thinning and prescribed burn treatments to meet risk management or ecological objectives.","PeriodicalId":12273,"journal":{"name":"Fire Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142201120","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Fire EcologyPub Date : 2024-08-30DOI: 10.1186/s42408-024-00302-x
Sharon M. Hood, Sarah J. Flanary, Christine M. Stalling
{"title":"Estimating masticated and cone fuel loads using the Photoload method","authors":"Sharon M. Hood, Sarah J. Flanary, Christine M. Stalling","doi":"10.1186/s42408-024-00302-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-024-00302-x","url":null,"abstract":"Recognizing the complexity and varied nature of forest fuelbeds is crucial in understanding fire behavior and effects on the landscape. While current modeling efforts often consider fine and coarse woody debris surface fuel loads, those options do not always provide the most complete description of the fuelbeds. Both masticated fuels and cones can be a significant part of the fuelbed, with the potential to influence fire behavior and effects, but they are not currently captured in planar intersect methods or Photoload fuel sampling methodology. Cones are prevalent in most forested conifer stands, while mastication is a type of fuel treatment used to compact fuelbeds by shredding or chipping small trees, shrubs, and down woody debris. The treatment creates nonuniform particle sizes that violate assumptions of the planar intersect method to estimate dead surface fuel loads. The Photoload method of fuel load estimation allows visual estimates of fuel loads by particle type and the flexibility to develop photosequences of new fuel types. We created Photoload mastication sequences for estimating loading of masticated fuels, as well as cone loading sequences. Our mastication photosequences were developed from Pinus ponderosa-Pseudotsuga menziesii forests in Montana, USA, but could be used to provide a relative estimate of load for any masticated material. The cones used for developing photosequences were gathered from several forest types in the Northern Rockies, USA. We created two masticated fuel photosequences—fine particles < 7.62 cm and coarse particles ≥ 7.62 cm in width and six cone photosequences—Larix occidentalis, P. ponderosa, Pinus monticola, Pinus flexilis, Picea engelmannii, and P. menziesii. The new mastication and cone loading photosequences can be used together with existing Photoload sequences to obtain total estimates of surface fuel loads. The 1-page sequences can be printed and used in the field to estimate these additional fuel type loads quickly and easily.","PeriodicalId":12273,"journal":{"name":"Fire Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142201121","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Fire EcologyPub Date : 2024-08-29DOI: 10.1186/s42408-024-00295-7
Chika K. Tada, Ella S. Plumanns-Pouton, Trent D. Penman, Alexander I. Filkov
{"title":"Fire intensity effects on serotinous seed survival","authors":"Chika K. Tada, Ella S. Plumanns-Pouton, Trent D. Penman, Alexander I. Filkov","doi":"10.1186/s42408-024-00295-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-024-00295-7","url":null,"abstract":"In fire-prone environments, some species store their seeds in canopy cones (serotiny), which provides seeds protection from the passage of fire before stimulating seed release. However, the capacity of serotinous cones to protect seeds under high intensity fire is uncertain. Beyond simply “high” versus “low” fire intensity or severity, we must understand the influence of the specific characteristics of fire intensity—heat flux, exposure duration, and their dynamics—on serotinous seed survival. In this study, we tested serotinous seed survival under transient levels of radiant heat to understand the distinct and combined impacts of radiative heat flux and duration of exposure on the survival of seeds from two serotinous obligate seeder species: yellow hakea (Hakea nodosa R.Br.) and heath-leaved banksia (Banksia ericifolia subsp. ericifolia). We found differing impacts of fire intensity treatments on seed survival. Static levels of radiative heat (17 kW/m2) at long durations (600 s) reduced seed survival by 75.7% for yellow hakea and 1.5% for heath-leaved banksia compared to the control. However, dynamic heat (a short 120-s period of 40 kW/m2 followed by a slow decline) with an identical total duration (600 s) did not have comparable reductions in seed survival. This is despite both treatments having comparable radiant exposure (10,200 kJ/m2 for the former and 10,236 kJ/m2 for the latter). Both species demonstrated remarkable capacity to withstand heat treatments, particularly dynamic fire intensity—both high (40 kW/m2) and low (19 kW/m2). While almost all fire exposure treatments reduced survival from the control, most seeds remained viable and germinated upon release. Our study highlights the importance of examining dynamic rather than static fire effects on vegetation, to accurately replicate the conditions of a fire front. Serotinous seeds demonstrate good capacity to tolerate intense fire. Nonetheless, the combined effects of high heat flux at prolonged durations reduces seed survival. We suggest overly prolonged passing fire fronts may cause seed death and are a risk to obligate seeder species that rely solely on seeds for persistence post-fire.","PeriodicalId":12273,"journal":{"name":"Fire Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142201123","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Fire EcologyPub Date : 2024-08-28DOI: 10.1186/s42408-024-00303-w
William Nikolakis, Russell Myers Ross, Victor Steffensen
{"title":"How bureaucracies interact with Indigenous Fire Stewardship (IFS): a conceptual framework","authors":"William Nikolakis, Russell Myers Ross, Victor Steffensen","doi":"10.1186/s42408-024-00303-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-024-00303-w","url":null,"abstract":"Indigenous Fire Stewardship (IFS) is contested within settler-colonial contexts, where its development is shaped by complex and dynamic socio-cultural, legal, and political factors. This manuscript draws from the policy sciences to sketch out a “zone of interaction” between IFS and the state’s wildfire policy system. Drawing from the strategies of bureaucracies, our goal is to illustrate the patterns in this “zone of interaction,” and to identify the implications for IFS, as well as for Indigenous Peoples and landscapes. Drawing insights from the Australian and Canadian contexts where governments are restoring lands and reconciling with the laws and governance of Indigenous Peoples, we illustrate how IFS interacts with the state. We do this in two ways. Figure 1 shows that the state has three general strategies for dealing with IFS: avoidance (ignoring IFS), coping strategies (carefully considering and sometimes accommodating IFS), and learning (embracing and accommodating IFS). We document that post-wildfire, there are affective drivers that move the state’s approach from avoidance to learning; however, over time, as public attention shifts away from alternatives, the strategy moves back to either avoidance or coping strategies (where the state is required to engage with IFS, but cannot fully embrace it because of institutional, tenure, or jurisdictional issues, among other constraints). Figure 2 documents the six coping strategies available to bureaucracies in dealing with IFS, which either institutionalize, partially institutionalize, or do not institutionalize IFS. Each of these pathways has implications for IFS, and the manuscript details the effects on IFS practices, and the impacts for people and landscapes. To better support IFS, we must look beyond the institutionalization of IFS within the state, and nest IFS within Indigenous laws and governance. An Indigenous-led IFS approach can operate in parallel with the state, and develop innovative land-access arrangements and Tribal Parks to apply IFS to landscapes. New structures of engagement must be designed for this parallel space, grounded in the principle of free prior and informed consent (FPIC), and with explicit focus on deconstructing power differences.","PeriodicalId":12273,"journal":{"name":"Fire Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142201122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Fire EcologyPub Date : 2024-08-27DOI: 10.1186/s42408-024-00306-7
Jaekyoung Kim, Junghyeon Ahn, Junsuk Kang
{"title":"Adaptive wildfire spread prediction for complex terrain: modeling the effectiveness of sprinkler systems","authors":"Jaekyoung Kim, Junghyeon Ahn, Junsuk Kang","doi":"10.1186/s42408-024-00306-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-024-00306-7","url":null,"abstract":"Because the threat of wildfires to global ecosystems and society continues to rise, this study provides an experimental simulation framework that assesses the spread and reduction of wildfires to evaluate the effectiveness of adaptation methods in reducing their impact. The process entails selecting a vulnerable wildfire area and adaptation method, then generating the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. Monitoring data are then used to configure the model, set boundary conditions, and simulate the fire. The effectiveness of the adaptation method in minimizing damage in the area of interest is evaluated by comparing simulations with and without the chosen adaptation method. Our focus area was a natural recreational forest in Wonju, Gangwon-do, Korea, and our adaptation method was a water sprinkler system. Our framework provides aims to provide an experimental means of assessing the wildfire spread path and spread area based on exogenous variables of wind speed, wind direction, relative humidity, and more. The sprinkler adaptation had a reduction effect of 20% in the wildfire spread rate for the 10-h period, which refers to the time limit of the simulation after ignition. We revealed that at higher wind speeds, the fire primarily follows the wind direction; whereas at lower wind speeds, the fire is more influenced by the topography. Additionally, 60 min after ignition, the adaptation methods can suppress wildfire spread by > 70%. Notably, sprinklers reduce smoke concentrations by up to 50% (ppm) over the affected area. This study demonstrates the potential effectiveness of a comprehensive CFD model in mitigating wildfire spread using sprinkler systems as an experimental analysis. Key results include a 20% reduction in wildfire within 10 h of ignition, significant influence of wind speed on spread patterns, and a reduction of smoke concentrations, improving air quality. These findings highlight the potential of CFD-based frameworks to enhance wildfire response strategies. However, it is important to note that this study’s limitations include the lack of experimental or measured fire behavior data, which should be considered when interpreting the effectiveness of the CFD model.","PeriodicalId":12273,"journal":{"name":"Fire Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142201145","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Fire EcologyPub Date : 2024-08-27DOI: 10.1186/s42408-024-00297-5
Clare E. Boerigter, Sean A. Parks, Jonathan W. Long, Jonathan D. Coop, Melanie Armstrong, Don L. Hankins
{"title":"Untrammeling the wilderness: restoring natural conditions through the return of human-ignited fire","authors":"Clare E. Boerigter, Sean A. Parks, Jonathan W. Long, Jonathan D. Coop, Melanie Armstrong, Don L. Hankins","doi":"10.1186/s42408-024-00297-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-024-00297-5","url":null,"abstract":"Historical and contemporary policies and practices, including the suppression of lightning-ignited fires and the removal of intentional fires ignited by Indigenous peoples, have resulted in over a century of fire exclusion across many of the USA’s landscapes. Within many designated wilderness areas, this intentional exclusion of fire has clearly altered ecological processes and thus constitutes a fundamental and ubiquitous act of trammeling. Through a framework that recognizes four orders of trammeling, we demonstrate the substantial, long-term, and negative effects of fire exclusion on the natural conditions of fire-adapted wilderness ecosystems. In order to untrammel more than a century of fire exclusion, the implementation of active programs of intentional burning may be necessary across some wilderness landscapes. We also suggest greater recognition and accommodation of Indigenous cultural burning, a practice which Tribes used to shape and maintain many fire-adapted landscapes for thousands of years before Euro-American colonization, including landscapes today designated as wilderness. Human-ignited fire may be critical to restoring the natural character of fire-adapted wilderness landscapes and can also support ecocultural restoration efforts sought by Indigenous peoples.","PeriodicalId":12273,"journal":{"name":"Fire Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142201144","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Fire EcologyPub Date : 2024-08-27DOI: 10.1186/s42408-024-00315-6
Erica A. H. Smithwick, Hong Wu, Kaitlyn Spangler, Mahsa Adib, Rui Wang, Cody Dems, Alan Taylor, Margot Kaye, Katherine Zipp, Peter Newman, Zachary D. Miller, Anthony Zhao
{"title":"Barriers and opportunities for implementing prescribed fire: lessons from managers in the mid-Atlantic region, United States","authors":"Erica A. H. Smithwick, Hong Wu, Kaitlyn Spangler, Mahsa Adib, Rui Wang, Cody Dems, Alan Taylor, Margot Kaye, Katherine Zipp, Peter Newman, Zachary D. Miller, Anthony Zhao","doi":"10.1186/s42408-024-00315-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-024-00315-6","url":null,"abstract":"Prescribed burning is a beneficial fire management practice used by practitioners worldwide to meet multiple land management objectives, including reduction of wildfire hazard, promotion of biodiversity, and management of vegetation for wildlife and human interests. Meeting these objectives can be difficult due to the need for institutional coordination, resource and policy constraints, and community support. We examined these dynamics in the United States’ mid-Atlantic region because prescribed fire use is increasing in the region to meet a broadening set of land management objectives. Managers are at the frontlines of these challenges and hold significant experience and knowledge for enhancing wildland fire management policy and strategy. Towards better leveraging this insight, we conducted focus groups with fire managers in land management agencies in the region to identify managers’ perceived barriers and opportunities for implementing prescribed fire. We found manager perceptions to be hierarchical, with barriers and opportunities expressed across landscape, community, and individual levels. Limited institutional coordination across landscapes was seen by managers as an opportunity for expanding prescribed fire implementation, whereas coping with shared fear or stress about burning among individual managers or individual community members was seen as a significant barrier. Yet, despite different prescribed burning histories and policies at the state level, barriers and opportunities were similar among managers in the mid-Atlantic region. Managers in the mid-Atlantic region confront barriers to prescribed fire use but are also uniquely positioned to recognize opportunities to enhance its implementation. This work sheds light on these barriers and opportunities, revealing that managers desire greater opportunities for landscape-level fire planning and coordination across agencies as well as greater opportunities for community engagement and interpersonal trust-building within complex social-management networks. Manager perspectives from the mid-Atlantic provide lessons for other regions across the globe grappling with new or broadened land-management strategies that include beneficial fire use.","PeriodicalId":12273,"journal":{"name":"Fire Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142201125","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Fire EcologyPub Date : 2024-08-27DOI: 10.1186/s42408-024-00293-9
Arpit Tiwari, Preethi Nanjundan, Ravi Ranjan Kumar, Vijay Kumar Soni
{"title":"A framework for natural resource management with geospatial machine learning: a case study of the 2021 Almora forest fires","authors":"Arpit Tiwari, Preethi Nanjundan, Ravi Ranjan Kumar, Vijay Kumar Soni","doi":"10.1186/s42408-024-00293-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-024-00293-9","url":null,"abstract":"Wildfires have a substantial impact on air quality and ecosystems by releasing greenhouse gases (GHGs), trace gases, and aerosols into the atmosphere. These wildfires produce both light-absorbing and merely scattering aerosols that can act as cloud condensation nuclei, altering cloud reflectivity, cloud lifetime, and precipitation frequency. Uttarakhand province in India experiences frequent wildfires that affect its protected ecosystems. Thus, a natural resource management system is needed in this region to assess the impact of wildfire hazards on land and atmosphere. We conducted an analysis of a severe fire event that occurred between January and April 2021 in the Kumaun region of Uttarakhand, by utilizing open-source geospatial data. Near-real-time satellite observations of pre- and post-fire conditions within the study area were used to detect changes in land and atmosphere. Supervised machine learning algorithm was also implemented to estimate burned above ground biomass (AGB) to monitor biomass stock. The study found that 21.75% of the total burned area burned with moderate to high severity, resulting in a decreased Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index value (> 0.3), a reduced Normalized Differential Moisture Index value (> 0.4), and a lowered Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (> 0.5). The AGB estimate demonstrated a significant simple determination (r2 = 0.001702) and probability (P < 2.2 10−16), along with a positive correlation (r ≤ 0.24) with vegetation and soil indices. The algorithm predicted that 17.56 tonnes of biomass per hectare burned in the Kumaun forests. This fire incident resulted in increased emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2; ~ 0.8 10−4 kg carbon h−1), methane (CH4; ~ 200 10−9 mol fraction in dry air), carbon monoxide (CO; 2000 1015 molecules cm−2 total column), and formaldehyde (HCHO; 3500 1013 molecules cm−2 total column), along with increased aerosol optical thickness (varying from 0.2 to 0.5). We believe that our proposed operational framework for managing natural resources and assessing the impact of natural hazards can be used to efficiently monitor near-real-time forest-fire-caused changes in land and atmosphere. This method makes use of openly accessible geospatial data that can be employed for several objectives, including monitoring carbon stocks, greenhouse gas emissions, criterion air pollution, and radiative forcing of the climate, among many others. Our proposed framework will assist policymakers and the scientific community in mitigating climate change problems and in developing adaptation policies.","PeriodicalId":12273,"journal":{"name":"Fire Ecology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142201124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}