Mapping Local Effects of Forest Properties on Fire Risk across Canada

Bernier, Pierre Y.; Gauthier, Sylvie; Jean, Pierre-Olivier; Manka, Francis; Boulanger, Yan; Beaudoin, A.; Guindon, Luc

doi:10.3390/f7080157

Cited by 69 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…That a fire perimeter of more than 150 km was already active at the onset of the final sequence in 2013 permitted considerable fire growth during the following two days. Fourth, compared to other fuel types, the flammability of mature conifers increases disproportionately with elevated temperature and drought, leading to the preferential development of large fires within large patches of mature conifers (Bernier et al ., ; Dash et al ., ). Fifth, fuel age is likely to influence not only fire spread but also ignition (Krawchuk et al ., ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…a) probably reflects the tendency of these old stands to develop and persist in areas resistant to fire due to high lake and peatland cover. The alternative explanation that overmature spruce stands decrease in flammability is not supported by recent studies showing that these stands are positively selected by fire across the North American boreal forest (Bernier et al ., ; Dash et al ., ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Spatial and temporal dimensions of fire activity in the fire‐prone eastern Canadian taiga

Erni

Arseneault

Parisien

et al. 2016

Global Change Biology

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The forest age mosaic is a fundamental attribute of the North American boreal forest. Given that fires are generally lethal to trees, the time since last fire largely determines the composition and structure of forest stands and landscapes. Although the spatiotemporal dynamics of such mosaics has long been assumed to be random under the overwhelming influence of severe fire weather, no long‐term reconstruction of mosaic dynamics has been performed from direct field evidence. In this study, we use fire length as a proxy for fire extent across the fire‐prone eastern Canadian taiga and systematically reconstruct the spatiotemporal variability of fire extent and fire intervals, as well as the resulting forest age along a 340‐km transect for the 1840–2013 time period. Our results indicate an extremely active fire regime over the last two centuries, with an overall burn rate of 2.1% of the land area yr−1, mainly triggered by seasonal anomalies of high temperature and severe drought. However, the rejuvenation of the age mosaic was strongly patterned in space and time due to the intrinsically lower burn rates in wetland‐dominated areas and, more importantly, to the much‐reduced likelihood of burning of stands up to 50 years postfire. An extremely high burn rate of ~5% yr−1 would have characterized our study region during the last century in the absence of such fuel age effect. Although recent burn rates and fire sizes are within their range of variability of the last 175 years, a particularly severe weather event allowed a 2013 fire to spread across a large fire refuge, thus shifting the abundance of mature and old forest to a historic low. These results provide reference conditions to evaluate the significance and predict the spatiotemporal dynamics and impacts of the currently strengthening fire activity in the North American boreal forest.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial and temporal dimensions of fire activity in the fire‐prone eastern Canadian taiga

Erni

Arseneault

Parisien

et al. 2016

Global Change Biology

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“…Because deciduous forest is less flammable than black spruce forest (Bernier et al. ), the transition from evergreen to deciduous vegetation could result in less fire on the landscape in the latter part of this century. This interaction between vegetation composition and fire regime is represented in this study since ALFRESCO represents the effect of fire severity on post‐fire vegetation succession and the feedback of vegetation composition on fire regime (see Pastick et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of driving factors in historical and projected carbon dynamics of upland ecosystems in Alaska

Genet

Lyu

et al. 2017

Ecological Applications

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Abstract. It is important to understand how upland ecosystems of Alaska, which are estimated to occupy 84% of the state (i.e., 1,237,774 km 2 ), are influencing and will influence statewide carbon (C) dynamics in the face of ongoing climate change. We coupled fire disturbance and biogeochemical models to assess the relative effects of changing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), climate, logging and fire regimes on the historical and future C balance of upland ecosystems for the four main Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) of Alaska. At the end of the historical period ) of our analysis, we estimate that upland ecosystems of Alaska store~50 Pg C (with~90% of the C in soils), and gained 3.26 Tg C/yr. Three of the LCCs had gains in total ecosystem C storage, while the Northwest Boreal LCC lost C (À6.01 Tg C/yr) because of increases in fire activity. Carbon exports from logging affected only the North Pacific LCC and represented less than 1% of the state's net primary production (NPP). The analysis for the future time period (2010-2099) consisted of six simulations driven by climate outputs from two climate models for three emission scenarios. Across the climate scenarios, total ecosystem C storage increased between 19.5 and 66.3 Tg C/yr, which represents 3.4% to 11.7% increase in Alaska upland's storage. We conducted additional simulations to attribute these responses to environmental changes. This analysis showed that atmospheric CO 2 fertilization was the main driver of ecosystem C balance. By comparing future simulations with constant and with increasing atmospheric CO 2 , we estimated that the sensitivity of NPP was 4.8% per 100 ppmv, but NPP becomes less sensitive to CO 2 increase throughout the 21st century. Overall, our analyses suggest that the decreasing CO 2 sensitivity of NPP and the increasing sensitivity of heterotrophic respiration to air temperature, in addition to the increase in C loss from wildfires weakens the C sink from upland ecosystems of Alaska and will ultimately lead to a source of CO 2 to the atmosphere beyond 2100. Therefore, we conclude that the increasing regional C sink we estimate for the 21st century will most likely be transitional.

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“…Fires exhibit selective behavior in many parts of Canada (Bernier et al 2016, but see also Podur and Martell 2009), thus the procedure of randomly selecting stands for burning could be improved. While random selection of burned stands (u 1 ) makes only a small contribution to total uncertainty, it can disproportionately affect how scenario analyses are interpreted.…”

Section: Fire Disturbance Data and Impactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For fire, however, records are selected randomly from all stands within the spatial unit boundaries with at least 1 Mg of aboveground biomass C. Thus, unless a constant random seed value is specified, each execution of a CBM-CFS3 simulation will differ. Selecting stands with higher biomass or DOM C pools will result in higher C emissions, contributing to uncertainty in regions or years with significant levels of fire disturbance and where fire exhibits selective behaviour (Bernier et al 2016). We quantified this source of uncertainty by allowing the random seed value to vary for each simulation and in doing so altered the stands affected by disturbance types with random selection rules.…”

Section: Model Algorithmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncertainty of inventory-based estimates of the carbon dynamics of Canada’s managed forest (1990–2014)

et al. 2017

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Canada's National Forest Carbon Monitoring Accounting and Reporting System (NFCMARS) quantifies the carbon (C) dynamics and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals of Canada's managed forest to fulfill reporting obligations under international climate conventions. Countries are also requested to assess the uncertainty associated with these estimates, which we report here. We used Monte Carlo simulation to quantify uncertainty of carbon stock and flux estimates from the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector (CBM-CFS3), the core ecosystem model of the NFCMARS. We evaluated the impacts of model algorithms, parameters, and the input data used to describe forest characteristics and disturbance rates. Under our assumptions, 95% confidence interval widths averaged 16.2 Pg C (+8.3 and -7.9 Pg C, or ±15%) for total ecosystem C stock and 32.2 Tg C·year −1 (+16.6 and -15.6 Tg C·year −1 ) for net biome production relative to an overall simulation median of -0.8 Tg C·year −1 from 1990 to 2014. The largest sources of uncertainty were related to factors determining biomass increment and the parameters used to model soil and dead organic matter C dynamics. Opportunities to reduce uncertainty and associated research challenges were identified.Key words: climate change, greenhouse gas inventory, forest carbon, boreal forest, mitigation, adaptation.Résumé : Le Système national de surveillance, de comptabilisation et de production de rapports concernant le carbone des forêts (SNSCPRCF) quantifie les changements dans les stocks de carbone (C) ainsi que les émissions et absorptions de gaz à effet de serre (GES) des forêts aménagées du Canada pour s'acquitter de l'obligation en matière de production de rapports dans le cadre des conventions internationales sur le climat. Les pays ont aussi l'obligation d'évaluer l'incertitude associée à ces estimations que nous rapportons dans cet article. Nous avons utilisé une simulation de Monte Carlo pour quantifier l'incertitude des stocks et des flux de carbone à partir du modèle du bilan du carbone du secteur forestier canadien (MBC-SFC3), le modèle d'écosystème à la base du SNSCPRCF. Nous avons évalué les impacts des algorithmes, des paramètres et des données d'entrée du modèle servant à décrire les caractéristiques et les taux de perturbation de la forêt. En fonction de nos hypothèses, l'étendue de l'intervalle de confiance à 95 % atteignait en moyenne 16,2 Pg C (+8,3 et -7,9 Pg C, ou ±15 %) pour le stock total de C de l'écosystème et 32,2 Tg C·an -1 (+16,6 et -15,6 Tg C·an -1 ) pour la production nette du biome relativement à une valeur médiane de -0,8 Tg C·an -1 pour les simulations de 1990 à 2014. Les plus importantes sources d'incertitude étaient reliées aux facteurs qui déterminent l'accroissement de la biomasse et aux paramètres utilisés pour modéliser la dynamique du C dans le sol et la matière organique morte. Les opportunités de réduire l'incertitude et les défis que cela représente pour la recherche sont identifiés. [Traduit par la Rédaction] Mots-clés : ch...

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Mapping Local Effects of Forest Properties on Fire Risk across Canada

Cited by 69 publications

References 26 publications

Spatial and temporal dimensions of fire activity in the fire‐prone eastern Canadian taiga

Spatial and temporal dimensions of fire activity in the fire‐prone eastern Canadian taiga

The role of driving factors in historical and projected carbon dynamics of upland ecosystems in Alaska

Uncertainty of inventory-based estimates of the carbon dynamics of Canada’s managed forest (1990–2014)

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