Declining fires in Larix-dominated forests in northern Irkutsk district

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuomo Wallenius ◽  
Markku Larjavaara ◽  
Juha Heikkinen ◽  
Olga Shibistova
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Forest Fires ◽  
Fire History ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Tree Ring Chronology ◽  
Fire Cycle ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Accounts ◽  
Additional Explanation

To study the poorly known fire history of Larix-dominated forest in central Siberia, we collected samples from 200 trees in 46 systematically located study plots. Our study area stretches ~90 km from north to south along the River Nizhnyaya Tunguska in northern Irkustk district. Cross-dated tree-ring chronology for all samples combined extended from the year 1360 AD to the present and included 76 fire years and 88 separate fire events. Average fire cycle gradually lengthened from 52 years in the 18th century to 164 years in the 20th century. During the same time, the number of recorded fires decreased even more steeply, i.e. by more than 85%. Fires were more numerous but smaller in the past. Contrary to expectations, climate change in the 20th century has not resulted in increased forest fires in this region. Fire suppression may have contributed to the scarcity of fires since the 1950s. However, a significant decline in fires was evident earlier; therefore an additional explanation is required, a reduction in human-caused ignitions being likely in the light of historical accounts.

scholarly journals A 500-year history of forest fires in Sala area, central Sweden, shows the earliest known onset of fire suppression in Scandinavia

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guilherme Alexandre Stecher Justini Pinto ◽  
Mats Niklasson ◽  
Nina Ryzhkova ◽  
Igor Drobyshev
Keyword(s):  
Forest Fires ◽  
Fire History ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Fire Cycle ◽  
Superposed Epoch Analysis ◽  
Burned Areas ◽  
Fire Activity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Epoch Analysis ◽  
In Fire

AbstractThe Sala fire in the Västmanland County of central Sweden that burned about 14,000 ha in 2014 has been the largest fire recorded in the modern history of Sweden. To understand the long-term fire history of this area, we dendrochronologically dated fire scars on Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) trees (live and deadwood) to reconstruct the fire cycle and fire occurrence in the area affected by the 2014 fire. We identified 64 fire years, using a total of 378 pine samples. The earliest reconstructed fire dated back to 1113 AD. The spatial reconstruction extended over the period of 1480–2018 AD. Lower levels of fire activity (fire cycle, FC = 43 years, with the central 90% of the distribution limited by 35 to 57 years) dominated in the earlier period (1480–1690 AD) that was followed by a strong decrease in fire activity since 1700 (FC = 403 years, with 90% of the distribution being within 149 to 7308 years), with a fire-free period between 1756 and 2014. Sala area, therefore, features the earliest known onset of fire suppression in Scandinavia. The high demand for timber during the peak in mining activities in the study area around the 1700–1800s, accompanied by passive fire suppression policies, were possibly the main drivers of the decline in fire activity. Superposed epoch analysis (SEA) did not show significant departures in the drought proxy during the ten years with the largest area burned between 1480 and1690. It is unclear whether the result is due to the relatively small area sampled or an indication that human controls of fires dominated during that period. However, significant departures during the following period with low fire activity (1700–1756), which just preceded the last fire-free period, suggested that the climate became an increasingly important driver of fire during the onset of the suppression period. We speculate that the lack of major firebreaks, the homogenization of forests, and the lack of burned areas with low fuel loads might contribute to the occurrence of the exceptionally large 2014 fire in Sala.

LITERARY ROMANTICISM AS A THEORETICAL ISSUE

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-27
Author(s):  
Vera V. Serdechnaia ◽  
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Theoretical Issue ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Literary Process ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

The article is devoted to the analysis of the concept of literary romanticism. The research aims at a refinement of the “romanticism” concept in relation to the history of the literary process. The main research methods include conceptual analysis, textual analysis, comparative historical research. The author analyzes the semantic genesis of the term “romanticism”, various interpretations of the concept, compares the definitions of different periods and cultures. The main results of the study are as follows. The history of the term “romanticism” shows a change in a number of definitions for the same concept in relation to the same literary phenomena. By the end of the 20th century, realizing the existence of significant contradictions in the content of the term “romanticism”, researchers often come to abandon it. At the same time, the steady use of the term “romanticism” testifies to the subject-conceptual component that exists in it, which does not lose its relevance, but just needs a theoretical refinement. Conclusion: one have to revise an approach to romanticism as a theoretical concept, based on the change in the concept of an individual in Europe at the end of the 18th century. It is the newly discovered freedom of an individual predetermines the rethinking for the image of the author as a creator and determines the artistic features of literary romanticism.

scholarly journals Considerations to some forms of the verb a fi: sum and sunt

Diacronia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gheorghe Chivu
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Literary Writing ◽  
The 19Th Century

The history of the verbal forms sum and sunt, introduced into the literary writing by the Transylvanian Latinist School, reveals a winding process in the elaboration of certain cultured norms proper to the modern literary Romanian. Not at all linear, this process was concurrently influenced by two, often divergent, tendencies that were active from the end of the 18th century up to the beginning of the 20th century: the use of some cultured forms, borrowed from Latin or created according to Latin patterns; and the revitalization of certain linguistic forms with regional diffusion. Initially proposed as literary pronunciations, the two verbal forms were soon adopted and used as etymological graphic forms that corresponded to sîm and suntu from certain conservative patois. During the second half of the 19th century (sum), and during the first decades of the 20th century (sunt), the two graphic forms became orthoepic norms as well, due to the phonological tradition of the Romanian writing.

scholarly journals Protestant cemeteries in Czechia: a necrogeographical perspective

Geografie ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 121 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-207
Author(s):  
Zdeněk R. Nešpor
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Regional Distribution ◽  
Social Geography ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Important Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Czech Lands ◽  
The Impact

The article introduces the field of necrogeography to Czech social geography and provides information on existing (nationwide) data sources. The author takes the issue of Protestant confessional cemeteries as an example, briefly outlines the history of these special types of burial fields (established principally from the end of the 18th century until approximately the mid-20th century), and provides a historical geographical analysis of their regional distribution in the Czech Lands. The article proves the impact of religious and geographical factors on the emergence (and eventual demise) of non-Catholic Christian confessional cemeteries and, at the same time, the research unveiled a number of important research questions to be addressed by Czech necrogeography in the future.

The History of Christian Missions to Africa

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Etherington
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Christian Missions ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sub Saharan

Christianity came very early to Africa, as attested by the Gospels. The agencies by which it spread across North Africa and into the Kingdom of Aksum remain largely unknown. Even after the rise of Islam cut communications between sub-Saharan Africa and the churches of Rome and Constantinople, it survived in the eastern Sudan kingdom of Nubia until the 15th century and never died in Ethiopia. The documentary history of organized missions begins with the Roman Catholic monastic orders founded in the 13th century. Their evangelical work in Africa was closely bound up with Portuguese colonialism, which both helped and hindered their operations. Organized European Protestant missions date from the 18th-century evangelical awakening and were much less creatures of states. Africa was a particular object of attention for Evangelicals opposed to slavery and the slave trade. Paradoxically this gave an impetus to colonizing ventures aimed at undercutting the moral and economic foundations of slavery in Africa. Disease proved to be a deadly obstacle to European- and American-born missionaries in tropical Africa, thus spurring projects for enrolling local agents who had acquired childhood immunity. Southern Africa below the Zambezi River attracted missionaries from many parts of Europe and North America because of the absence of the most fearsome diseases. However the turbulent politics of the region complicated their work by restricting their access to organized African kingdoms and chieftaincies. The prevalent mission model until the late 19th century was a station under the direction of a single European family whose religious and educational endeavors were directed at a small number of African residents. Catholic missions acquired new energy following the French Revolution, the old Portuguese system of partnership with the state was displaced by enthusiasm for independent operations under the authority of the Pope in Rome. Several new missionary orders were founded with a particular focus on Africa. Mission publications of the 19th and 20th centuries can convey a misleading impression that the key agents in the spread of African Christianity were foreign-born white males. Not only does this neglect the work of women as wives and teachers, but it diverts attention from the Africans who were everywhere the dominant force in the spread of modern Christianity. By the turn of the 20th century, evangelism had escaped the bounds of mission stations driven by African initiative and the appearance of so-called “faith missions” based on a model of itinerant preaching. African prophets and independent evangelists developed new forms of Christianity. Once dismissed as heretical or syncretic, they gradually came to be recognized as legitimate variants of the sort that have always accompanied the acculturation of religion in new environments. Decolonization caught most foreign mission operations unawares and required major changes, most notably in the recruitment of African clergy to the upper echelons of church hierarchies. By the late 20th century Africans emerged as an independent force in Christian missions, sending agents to other continents.

Popular Literacy and the Roots of the New Writing

1986 ◽  
Vol 168 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Willinsky
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Writing Programs ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
Literacy Crisis ◽  
History Of ◽  
Popular Literacy ◽  
20Th Century United States

The place of writing in the curriculum has recently increased in importance under a series of new approaches based on a processing model of how writers write. An overlooked aspect of these new programs in the schools is the degree to which they parallel aspects of an earlier, popular literacy. In a brief recounting of incidents in the history of literacy with a focus on Renaissance Europe, 17th- and 18th-century England, and the 20th-century United States, three historical elements are brought to light which now play a strong part in the new programs. In these programs literacy (a) is sociable, (b) has its roots in nonstandardized language, and (c) places a premium on performance and publication. Insofar as the new writing takes up these aspects of popular literacy, there is reason to feel that it will work to some degree in meeting the current literacy crisis. However, the traditions of popular literacy have both political and social ramifications which warrant our attention. Popular literacy in the past has been entangled in the sensational and subversive and has not always been well received. This history raises questions as to what can be expected and what is desired of this new thrust in writing. The advocates of the new writing programs need to confront the potential of this increased voice, this latest form of popular literacy, which they have begun to encourage.

Changes in forest fire frequency in Kootenay National Park, Canadian Rockies

1990 ◽  
Vol 68 (8) ◽  
pp. 1763-1767 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan M. Masters
Keyword(s):  
Forest Fire ◽  
Rocky Mountains ◽  
National Park ◽  
Fire History ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Fire Frequency ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Distribution Analysis ◽  
Fire Cycle ◽  
Time Since Fire

Time-since-fire distribution analysis is used to estimate forest fire frequency for the 1400 km2 Kootenay National Park, British Columbia, located on the west slope of the Rocky Mountains. The time-since-fire distribution indicates three periods of different fire frequency: 1988 to 1928, 1928 to 1788, and before 1788. The fire cycle for the park was > 2700 years for 1988 to 1928, 130 years between 1928 and 1788, and 60 years between 1778 and 1508. Longer fire cycles after 1788 and 1928 may be due, respectively, to cool climate associated with the Little Ice Age and a recent period of higher precipitation. Contrary to some fire history investigations in the region, neither a fire suppression policy since park establishment in 1919, nor the completion of the Windermere Highway through the park in 1923 appear to have changed the fire frequency from levels during pre-European occupation. Spatial partitioning of the time-since-fire distribution was unsuccessful. No relationship was found between elevation or aspect and fire frequency. Key words: fire cycle, Rocky Mountains, climate change.

scholarly journals A concise review of lobster utilization by worldwide human populations from prehistory to the modern era

2015 ◽  
Vol 72 (suppl_1) ◽  
pp. i7-i21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ehud Spanier ◽  
Kari L. Lavalli ◽  
Jason S. Goldstein ◽  
Johan C. Groeneveld ◽  
Gareth L. Jordaan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Fishing Effort ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Economic Resource ◽  
European Contact ◽  
Long Distance Transport ◽  
History Of

Abstract Lobsters are important resources throughout the world's oceans, providing food security, employment, and a trading commodity. Whereas marine biologists generally focus on modern impacts of fisheries, here we explore the deep history of lobster exploitation by prehistorical humans and ancient civilizations, through the first half of the 20th century. Evidence of lobster use comprises midden remains, artwork, artefacts, writings about lobsters, and written sources describing the fishing practices of indigenous peoples. Evidence from archaeological dig sites is potentially biased because lobster shells are relatively thin and easily degraded in most midden soils; in some cases, they may have been used as fertilizer for crops instead of being dumped in middens. Lobsters were a valuable food and economic resource for early coastal peoples, and ancient Greek and Roman Mediterranean civilizations amassed considerable knowledge of their biology and fisheries. Before European contact, lobsters were utilized by indigenous societies in the Americas, southern Africa, Australia, and New Zealand at seemingly sustainable levels, even while other fish and molluscan species may have been overfished. All written records suggest that coastal lobster populations were dense, even in the presence of abundant and large groundfish predators, and that lobsters were much larger than at present. Lobsters gained a reputation as “food for the poor” in 17th and 18th century Europe and parts of North America, but became a fashionable seafood commodity during the mid-19th century. High demand led to intensified fishing effort with improved fishing gear and boats, and advances in preservation and long-distance transport. By the early 20th century, coastal stocks were overfished in many places and average lobster size was significantly reduced. With overfishing came attempts to regulate fisheries, which have varied over time and have met with limited success.

Anthropogenic impact on past and present fire regimes in a boreal forest landscape of southeastern Norway

2005 ◽  
Vol 35 (11) ◽  
pp. 2719-2726 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rune Groven ◽  
Mats Niklasson
Keyword(s):  
Fire History ◽  
Nature Reserve ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Mining Activity ◽  
Forest Landscape ◽  
Sample Mean ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mean Fire Interval ◽  
Fire Intervals ◽  
Historical Accounts

Fire-scarred wood samples from 50 stumps, snags, and living trees of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) were dendrochronologically cross-dated to describe an 800 year long fire history of Eldferdalen Nature Reserve (~6 ha) and its surroundings (~4000 ha) in southeastern Norway. In the western part of the study area, we recorded 55 different fires within a 200 ha area around the reserve between 1511 and 1759 and a mean fire interval in single samples of 24.6 years. The composite mean fire interval for the nature reserve was 10.5 years. Fire intervals were longer in the eastern part of the study area, with a single sample mean fire interval of 49.1 years. Only three fires were detected after 1759, the last one in 1822. Based on historical accounts, we assume that the high number of fires and short fire intervals were influenced by deliberate ignition for agricultural purposes, most likely burning to improve the conditions for cattle grazing and slash-and-burn cultivation. We suggest that the cessation of fires was influenced by the increased value of timber and mining activity, thereby leading to increased interest in conservation of the timber resources.

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