Extrapolation Problems in Modeling Fire Effects at Large Spatial Scales: a Review

1996 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 165 ◽  
Author(s):  
D Mckenzie ◽  
DL Peterson ◽  
E Alvarado
Keyword(s):  
Vegetation Change ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Fire Behavior ◽  
Fire Effects ◽  
Ecological Effects ◽  
Challenging Problem ◽  
Landscape Disturbance ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Behavior Models ◽  
Single Approach

Models of vegetation change in response to global warming need to incorporate the effects of disturbance at broad spatial scales. Process-based predictive models, whether for fire behavior or fire effects on vegetation, assume homogeneity of crucial inputs over the spatial scale to which they are applied. Landscape disturbance models predict final burning patterns, but either do not model mechanistic behavior and explicit spread rates, or require large amounts of data to initialize simulations and predict ecological effects. Empirical data on the ecological effects of fire are not generally available at these scales, and conclusions are often extrapolated upward from stand-level data. Three methods for extrapolating ecological effects of fire across spatial scales and the sources of error associated with each were identified: (1) extrapolating fire behavior models directly to larger spatial scales; (2) integrating fire behavior and fire effects models with successional models at the stand level, then extrapolating upward; and (3) aggregating model inputs to the scale of interest. Extreme fire events present a challenging problem for modelers, regardless of which extrapolation method is employed. No single approach to modeling fire effects is inherently superior; modeling objectives and the characteristics of specific systems will determine the best strategy for each situation.

scholarly journals Remote sensing techniques to assess active fire characteristics and post-fire effects

2006 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leigh B. Lentile ◽  
Zachary A. Holden ◽  
Alistair M. S. Smith ◽  
Michael J. Falkowski ◽  
Andrew T. Hudak ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Fire Severity ◽  
Fire Behavior ◽  
Fire Effects ◽  
Ecological Effects ◽  
Fire Intensity ◽  
Active Fire ◽  
Post Fire Effects ◽  
Remote Sensing Techniques ◽  
Fire Characteristics

Space and airborne sensors have been used to map area burned, assess characteristics of active fires, and characterize post-fire ecological effects. Confusion about fire intensity, fire severity, burn severity, and related terms can result in the potential misuse of the inferred information by land managers and remote sensing practitioners who require unambiguous remote sensing products for fire management. The objective of the present paper is to provide a comprehensive review of current and potential remote sensing methods used to assess fire behavior and effects and ecological responses to fire. We clarify the terminology to facilitate development and interpretation of comprehensible and defensible remote sensing products, present the potential and limitations of a variety of approaches for remotely measuring active fires and their post-fire ecological effects, and discuss challenges and future directions of fire-related remote sensing research.

scholarly journals 100 Years of Progress in Applied Meteorology. Part III: Additional Applications

2019 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 24.1-24.35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Ellen Haupt ◽  
Branko Kosović ◽  
Scott W. McIntosh ◽  
Fei Chen ◽  
Kathleen Miller ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Fire Behavior ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Security Sector ◽  
Environmental System ◽  
Applied Meteorology ◽  
Agriculture And Food ◽  
Behavior Models

AbstractApplied meteorology is an important and rapidly growing field. This chapter concludes the three-chapter series of this monograph describing how meteorological information can be used to serve society’s needs while at the same time advancing our understanding of the basics of the science. This chapter continues along the lines of Part II of this series by discussing ways that meteorological and climate information can help to improve the output of the agriculture and food-security sector. It also discusses how agriculture alters climate and its long-term implications. It finally pulls together several of the applications discussed by treating the food–energy–water nexus. The remaining topics of this chapter are those that are advancing rapidly with more opportunities for observation and needs for prediction. The study of space weather is advancing our understanding of how the barrage of particles from other planetary bodies in the solar system impacts Earth’s atmosphere. Our ability to predict wildland fires by coupling atmospheric and fire-behavior models is beginning to impact decision-support systems for firefighters. Last, we examine how artificial intelligence is changing the way we predict, emulate, and optimize our meteorological variables and its potential to amplify our capabilities. Many of these advances are directly due to the rapid increase in observational data and computer power. The applications reviewed in this series of chapters are not comprehensive, but they will whet the reader’s appetite for learning more about how meteorology can make a concrete impact on the world’s population by enhancing access to resources, preserving the environment, and feeding back into a better understanding how the pieces of the environmental system interact.

scholarly journals Validation of coupled atmosphere-fire behavior models

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.E. Bossert ◽  
J.M. Reisner ◽  
R.R. Linn ◽  
J.L. Winterkamp ◽  
R. Schaub ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fire Behavior ◽  
Behavior Models

scholarly journals The role of spatial scale and background climate in the latitudinal temperature response to deforestation

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 1897-1937 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Li ◽  
N. de Noblet-Ducoudré ◽  
E. L. Davin ◽  
N. Zeng ◽  
S. Motesharrei ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Temperature Change ◽  
Vegetation Change ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Temperature Response ◽  
Shortwave Radiation ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
Background Climate

Abstract. Previous modeling and empirical studies have shown that the biophysical impact of deforestation is to warm the tropics and cool the extra-tropics. In this study, we use an earth system model to investigate how deforestation at various spatial scales affects ground temperature, with an emphasis on the latitudinal temperature response and its underlying mechanisms. Results show that the latitudinal pattern of temperature response depends non-linearly on the spatial extent of deforestation and the fraction of vegetation change. Compared with regional deforestation, temperature change in global deforestation is greatly amplified in temperate and boreal regions, but is dampened in tropical regions. Incremental forest removal leads to increasingly larger cooling in temperate and boreal regions, while the temperature increase saturates in tropical regions. The latitudinal and spatial patterns of the temperature response are driven by two processes with competing temperature effects: decreases in absorbed shortwave radiation due to increased albedo and decreases in evapotranspiration. These changes in the surface energy balance reflect the importance of the background climate on modifying the deforestation impact. Shortwave radiation and precipitation have an intrinsic geographical distribution that constrains the effects of biophysical changes and therefore leads to temperature changes that are spatially varying. For example, wet (dry) climate favors larger (smaller) evapotranspiration change, thus warming (cooling) is more likely to occur. Further analysis on the contribution of individual biophysical factors (albedo, roughness, and evapotranspiration efficiency) reveals that the latitudinal signature embodied in the temperature change probably result from the background climate conditions rather than the initial biophysical perturbation.

Fire Ecology

Ecology ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Parminter
Keyword(s):  
Fire Ecology ◽  
Fire History ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Natural Disturbance ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Fire Effects ◽  
Forest Harvesting ◽  
Natural Disturbances ◽  
Wilderness Areas

Abiotic natural disturbance agents include wildfire, wind, landslides, snow avalanches, volcanoes, flooding, and other weather-related phenomena. Fire is of particular interest because of its antiquity, its natural role in many terrestrial ecosystems, its long-term use by humans to modify vegetation, and its potentially serious threat to life and property. Fire ecology is the art and science of understanding natural and human fire history and fire effects on the environment, species, ecosystems, and landscapes. This knowledge aids the development of fire and ecosystem management plans and activities. Fire history is determined by a number of techniques that use available physical or cultural evidence to examine particular temporal and spatial scales. Fire effects on the environment and organisms are determined by observation and experimentation, but the findings are variable and often contradictory. Fire regimes are used to characterize the role of fire in specific ecosystems and can help guide ecosystem restoration activities. Attitudes toward fire have evolved over time, as good and bad experiences combined with improved scientific understanding to influence our perspectives. Natural disturbances came to be viewed as integral parts of ecosystems rather than external perturbations. We now strive to allow fire to maintain its natural role in wilderness areas and parks and also to emulate natural disturbances, such as fire, when designing forest harvesting operations. This article focuses on how and what we know about fire’s history, its effects on different components of the environment, its role in specific vegetation types, and its relationship with human culture.

scholarly journals Improvement of fire danger rating and vegetation fire behaviour prediction on protected areas

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 00040
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Volokitina ◽  
Dina Nazimova ◽  
Tatiana Sofronova ◽  
Mikhail Korets
Keyword(s):  
Protected Areas ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Fire Behavior ◽  
Fire Spread ◽  
Fire Effects ◽  
Nature Reserves ◽  
Fire Danger ◽  
Behavior Prediction ◽  
Forest Fire Danger ◽  
Economic Use

Protected areas (PAs) are established to conserve biological diversity, to maintain nature complexes and objects in their natural condition. Strict nature reserves prevail in Russia by their total area. The whole nature complex is forever extracted from economic use in nature reserves. Here it is prohibited to pursue any activity which might disturb or damage the nature complexes. Even under the existing strict protection from anthropogenic ignition sources, vegetation fires do occur on their territory. Besides, lightnings − these natural ignition sources − are impossible to exclude. Since large destructive fires are impermissible in nature reserves, the later especially need vegetation fire behavior prediction for fire management. Fire behavior prediction includes fire spread rate, development (from surface fire into crown or ground one) and fire effects. All this is necessary for taking optimal decisions on how to control each occurring fire and how to suppress it. The Sukachev Institute of Forest SB RAS has developed a method to improve forest fire danger rating and a technique of vegetation fire behavior prediction using vegetation fuel maps (VF maps).

scholarly journals Fire effects on the composition of a bird community in an amazonian Savanna (Brazil)

2005 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-695 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Cintra ◽  
T. M. Sanaiotti
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Community Composition ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Bird Community ◽  
Fire Effects ◽  
Bird Abundance ◽  
Bird Species Richness ◽  
Byrsonima Crassifolia ◽  
Mist Net

The effects of fire on the composition of a bird community were investigated in an Amazonian savanna near Alter-do-Chão, Pará (Brazil). Mist-net captures and visual counts were used to assess species richness and bird abundance pre- and post-fire in an approximately 20 ha area. Visual counts along transects were used to survey birds in an approximately 2000 ha area in a nearby area. Results using the same method of ordination analysis (multidimensional scaling) showed significant effects of fire in the 20 ha and 2000 ha areas and strongly suggest direct effects on bird community composition. However, the effects were different at different spatial scales and/or in different years, indicating that the effects of fire vary spatially and/or temporally. Bird community composition pre-fire was significantly different from that found post-fire. Using multiple regression analysis it was found that the numbers of burned and unburned trees were not significantly related to either bird species richness or bird abundance. Two months after the fire, neither bird species richness nor bird abundance was significantly related to the number of flowering trees (Lafoensia pacari) or fruiting trees (Byrsonima crassifolia). Since fire is an annual event in Alter-do-Chão and is becoming frequent in the entire Amazon, bird community composition in affected areas could be constantly changing in time and space.

scholarly journals Effects of Biomass Removal Treatments on Stand-Level Fire Characteristics in Major Forest Types of the Northern Rocky Mountains

2010 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth D. Reinhardt ◽  
Lisa Holsinger ◽  
Robert Keane
Keyword(s):  
Ponderosa Pine ◽  
Rocky Mountains ◽  
Fire Behavior ◽  
Fire Effects ◽  
Forest Types ◽  
Prescribed Burns ◽  
Northern Rocky Mountains ◽  
Biomass Removal ◽  
Fuel Dynamics ◽  
Fire Characteristics

Abstract Removal of dead and live biomass from forested stands affects subsequent fuel dynamics and fire potential. The amount of material left onsite after biomass removal operations can influence the intensity and severity of subsequent unplanned wildfires or prescribed burns. We developed a set of biomass removal treatment scenarios and simulated their effects on a number of stands that represent two major forests types of the northern Rocky Mountains: lodgepole and ponderosa pine. The Fire and Fuels Extension to the Forest Vegetation Simulator was used to simulate effects including stand development, fire behavior, and fire effects prior to the biomass removal treatment and 1, 10, 30, and 60 years after the treatment. Analysis of variance was used to determine whether these changes in fuel dynamics and fire potential differed significantly from each other. Results indicated that fire and fuel characteristics varied within and between forest types and depended on the nature of the treatment, as well as time since treatment. Biomass removal decreased fire potential in the short term, but results were mixed over the long term.

scholarly journals The role of spatial scale and background climate in the latitudinal temperature response to deforestation

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Li ◽  
Nathalie De Noblet-Ducoudré ◽  
Edouard L. Davin ◽  
Safa Motesharrei ◽  
Ning Zeng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Temperature Change ◽  
Vegetation Change ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Temperature Response ◽  
Shortwave Radiation ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
Biophysical Changes ◽  
Background Climate

Abstract. Previous modeling and empirical studies have shown that the biophysical impact of deforestation is to warm the tropics and cool the extratropics. In this study, we use an earth system model of intermediate complexity to investigate how deforestation on various spatial scales affects ground temperature, with an emphasis on the latitudinal temperature response and its underlying mechanisms. Results show that the latitudinal pattern of temperature response depends nonlinearly on the spatial extent of deforestation and the fraction of vegetation change. Compared with regional deforestation, temperature change in global deforestation is greatly amplified in temperate and boreal regions but is dampened in tropical regions. Incremental forest removal leads to increasingly larger cooling in temperate and boreal regions, while the temperature increase saturates in tropical regions. The latitudinal and spatial patterns of the temperature response are driven by two processes with competing temperature effects: decrease in absorbed shortwave radiation due to increased albedo and decrease in evapotranspiration. These changes in the surface energy balance reflect the importance of the background climate in modifying the deforestation impact. Shortwave radiation and precipitation have an intrinsic geographical distribution that constrains the effects of biophysical changes and therefore leads to temperature changes that are spatially varying. For example, wet (dry) climate favors larger (smaller) evapotranspiration change; thus, warming (cooling) is more likely to occur. Our analysis reveals that the latitudinal temperature change largely results from the climate conditions in which deforestation occurs and is less influenced by the magnitude of individual biophysical changes such as albedo, roughness, and evapotranspiration efficiency.

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