Recent trends in African fires driven by cropland expansion and El Niño to La Niña transition

Andela, Niels; Werf, Guido R. van der

doi:10.1038/nclimate2313

Cited by 254 publications

(331 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…However, local-and regionalscale research show vastly different fire responses to land cover change and land management in different ecosystems (Cochrane and Barber, 2009;Archibald et al, 2009;Runyan et al, 2012). Satellite observations of African savannah show that a portion of the decrease in fires that occurred over the first decade of the 21st century resulted from conversion of savannah to croplands (Andela and van der Werf, 2014). While in the Amazon region of South America, wildfires probably increase in occurrence and area burned following landscape fragmentation, especially from deforestation (Nepstad et al, 1999(Nepstad et al, , 2006Aragao and Shimabukuro, 2010;Chen et al, 2013).…”

Section: Fire-lulcc Interactionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local sources of global climate forcing from different categories of land use activities

Ward

Mahowald

2015

Earth Syst. Dynam.

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Abstract. Identifying and quantifying the sources of climate impacts from land use and land cover change (LULCC) is necessary to optimize policies regarding LULCC for climate change mitigation. These climate impacts are typically defined relative to emissions of CO 2 , or sometimes emissions of other long-lived greenhouse gases. Here we use previously published estimates of the radiative forcing (RF) of LULCC that include the short-lived forcing agents O 3 and aerosols, in addition to long-lived greenhouse gases and land albedo change, for six projections of LULCC as a metric for quantifying climate impacts. The LULCC RF is attributed to three categories of LULCC activities: direct modifications to land cover, agriculture, and wildfire response, and sources of the forcing are ascribed to individual grid points for each sector. Results for the year 2010 show substantial positive forcings from the direct modifications and agriculture sectors, particularly from south and southeast Asia, and a smaller magnitude negative forcing response from wildfires. The spatial distribution of future sources of LULCC RF is highly scenario-dependent, but we show that future forest area change can be used as a predictor of the future RF from direct modification activities, especially in the tropics, suggesting that deforestation-prevention policies that value land based on its C-content may be particularly effective at mitigating climate forcing originating in the tropics from this sector. However, the response of wildfire RF to tropical land cover changes is not as easily scalable and yet imposes a non-trivial feedback onto the total LULCC RF.

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Section: Fire-lulcc Interactionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local sources of global climate forcing from different categories of land use activities

Ward

Mahowald

2015

Earth Syst. Dynam.

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“…However, all affect the continuity of ecosystems and, some land-use types more so than others [10]. Increasing land-use intensity and fragmentation disrupts disturbance regimes and vegetation dynamics [72], potentially amplifying a global change-induced trend of encroachment by further reducing tree mortality. To date, 50% of the Brazilian cerrado has been transformed for agriculture, a rate of land-use change roughly double that of the Amazon forest [73,74].…”

Section: Drivers Of Changementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, people also directly influence disturbance regimes at broad scales [6,72]. Active suppression of fire in the savannah regions of Asia and Brazil in particular has facilitated woody or weed encroachment [59,75].…”

Section: Drivers Of Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Tropical grassy biomes: linking ecology, human use and conservation

Lehmann

Parr

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Tropical grassy biomes (TGBs) are changing rapidly the world over through a coalescence of high rates of land-use change, global change and altered disturbance regimes that maintain the ecosystem structure and function of these biomes. Our theme issue brings together the latest research examining the characterization, complex ecology, drivers of change, and human use and ecosystem services of TGBs. Recent advances in ecology and evolution have facilitated a new perspective on these biomes. However, there continues to be controversies over their classification and state dynamics that demonstrate critical data and knowledge gaps in our quantitative understanding of these geographically dispersed regions. We highlight an urgent need to improve ecological understanding in order to effectively predict the sensitivity and resilience of TGBs under future scenarios of global change. With human reliance on TGBs increasing and their propensity for change, ecological and evolutionary understanding of these biomes is central to the dual goals of sustaining their ecological integrity and the diverse services these landscapes provide to millions of people. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Tropical grassy biomes: linking ecology, human use and conservation’.

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“…Future fire activity, however, will be strongly anthropogenically disturbed in many parts of the world, which limits the applicability of relationships derived from past fire activity to future climate conditions. Changes in land use, urban settlement, human ignition and fire suppression will all impact fire activity and will most likely dominate the overall change in fire activity in many places in the world (Andela and van der Werf, 2014;Kloster et al, 2012). Nevertheless, understanding the climate control on fire activity is essential for management plan that aims for a sustainable future.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Controls on fire activity over the Holocene

et al. 2015

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Abstract. Changes in fire activity over the last 8000 years are simulated with a global fire model driven by changes in climate and vegetation cover. The changes were separated into those caused through variations in fuel availability, fuel moisture or wind speed, which react differently to changes in climate. Disentangling these controlling factors helps in understanding the overall climate control on fire activity over the Holocene.Globally the burned area is simulated to increase by 2.5 % between 8000 and 200 cal yr BP, with larger regional changes compensating nearly evening out on a global scale. Despite

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Recent trends in African fires driven by cropland expansion and El Niño to La Niña transition

Cited by 254 publications

References 29 publications

Local sources of global climate forcing from different categories of land use activities

Local sources of global climate forcing from different categories of land use activities

Tropical grassy biomes: linking ecology, human use and conservation

Controls on fire activity over the Holocene

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