Bowring S. P. K., Li W., Mouillot Florent, Rosan T. M., Ciais P. (2024). Road fragment edges enhance wildfire incidence and intensity, while suppressing global burned area. Nature Communications, 15 (1), p. 9176 [16 p.].
Titre du document
Road fragment edges enhance wildfire incidence and intensity, while suppressing global burned area
Bowring S. P. K., Li W., Mouillot Florent, Rosan T. M., Ciais P.
Source
Nature Communications, 2024,
15 (1), p. 9176 [16 p.]
Landscape fragmentation is statistically correlated with both increases and decreases in wildfire burned area (BA). These different directions-of-impact are not mechanistically understood. Here, road density, a land fragmentation proxy, is implemented in a CMIP6 coupled land-fire model, to represent fragmentation edge effects on fire-relevant environmental variables. Fragmentation caused modelled BA changes of over +/- 10% in 16% of [0.5 degrees] grid-cells. On average, more fragmentation decreased net BA globally (-1.5%), as estimated empirically. However, in recently-deforested tropical areas, fragmentation drove observationally-consistent BA increases of over 20%. Globally, fragmentation-driven fire BA decreased with increasing population density, but was a hump-shaped function of it in forests. In some areas, fragmentation-driven decreases in BA occurred alongside higher-intensity fires, suggesting the decoupling of fire severity traits. This mechanistic model provides a starting point for quantifying policy-relevant fragmentation-fire impacts, whose results suggest future forest degradation may shift fragmentation from net global fire inhibitor to net fire driver. Widespread global occurrence of roads break up the landscape and may be a powerful driver of increasing fire activity and intensity in less populated and less frequently burned regions, such as tropical forests, while decreasing fire on average at global scale.
Plan de classement
Sciences fondamentales / Techniques d'analyse et de recherche [020]
;
Sciences du milieu [021]
;
Etudes, transformation, conservation du milieu naturel [082]
