Spatial Analysis of 2019 Peat Fire in South Sumatra Conservation Area

Abstract

In 2019, Indonesia seasoned another haze disaster due to peat fires. In the South Sumatra province, fires occurred in most of the peatland areas. The research aims to identify peat fires that occur in protected forest areas in The South Sumatra. The boundary of the protected forest area is obtained from the Forest Department of South Sumatra Province. Meanwhile, the fire events in the study area were analyzed by the hotspot distributions data during the dry season 2019 (Juni-November). The identification of fires (hotspot data) on the peat area uses peat distribution data from the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry. The geographic information system technique with a spatial analysis method is used in this research. The identification results show that only a small part of the peatland in the study area has the status of protected forest areas. Most of the protected forests in the South Sumatra peat area burned in 2019. The results of this study indicate that the natural conditions of the peat ecosystem in protected forest areas have been degraded due to fire events. On the other hand, peat fires in protected forest areas indicate human activity for resource use and land use in the area.

Dynamics of Peatland Fires in South Sumatra in 2019: Role of Groundwater Levels

“…In 2015 and 2019, there was an IOD+ event, which caused the daily average precipitation in 2015 to only be 1.64 mm/day and, in 2019, only 2.07 mm/day. Previous studies have shown that the Indo-Pacific climate modes, namely IOD and ENSO, have been linked to the deficit in precipitation observed across the Indonesian region [13,38].…”

“…Additionally, the satellite passes over the same locations twice a day and at night, providing up-to-date data that are valuable for firefighting teams to swiftly identify and address fire incidents. NOAA satellite-derived hotspot data can be used for forecasting hotspots and smoke, detecting fire incidents, monitoring forest fires, and mapping fire vulnerability levels [10,38].…”

Detecting the sensitivity of water content and deficiency rainfall during positive Indian Ocean Dipole events

“…Based on earlier research, the IOD was compared to a threshold value of the annual DMI mean. A value above 0.5°C indicated a positive IOD and less than -0.5°C indicated a negative IOD [13]. The flow of the methodology is shown in Figure 2.…”

“…The dataset developed is the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Level 3 from soil moisture observations. The Enhanced SMAP Global soil moisture data provides at 10 km spatial resolution with the range of estimated minimum and maximum values are 0 and 25.39 mm, respectively [13,14].…”