Academic literature on the topic 'Biomass wildfires'
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Journal articles on the topic "Biomass wildfires"
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N., Mukululi, and Innocent M. "An Analysis of the Influence of Annual Rainfall Fluctuations on Wildfire Occurrence in Protected Areas in the Northwest of Zimbabwe." African Journal of Environment and Natural Science Research 4, no. 3 (August 9, 2021): 93–107. http://dx.doi.org/10.52589/ajensr-deyolnl5.
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The occurrence and threat from wildfires are a conservation concern in semi-arid savanna-protected areas. The risk of wildlife occurrence is uncertain under climate change scenarios. However, general predictions are that different changes are likely to occur in weather conditions in different landscapes. We sought to analyze the influence of annual precipitation on wildfire occurrence in a protected area landscape in northwest Zimbabwe. Data on annual rainfall received and wildfire occurrence for Chizarira National Park (CNP), Chirisa Safari Area (CSA), and Sengwa Wildlife Research Area (SWRA) was analyzed using regression analysis. The relationship between the annual precipitation amount received per site and the number of wildfires recorded per site showed a positive correlation only for CSA. No significant differences were observed for CNP and SWRA at a significant level of p< 0.05. The highest number of wildfires were recorded between July and November. We advance that annual rainfall is one factor among many drivers of wildfires and that this is not uniform but varies across the landscape. Effective annual precipitation contributes to high vegetation biomass production and accumulation of such biomass increases the risk of wildfires. In some instances, rainfall patterns could not explain the occurrence of wildfires. We, therefore, contend that other drivers such as human activities and natural factors are important drivers of wildfires across the three sites. The conservation implication of our finding is that robust fire management plans need to take an ecosystem approach that includes communities adjacent to protected areas.
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Pokharel, Raju, Gregory Latta, and Sara B. Ohrel. "Estimating Climate-Sensitive Wildfire Risk and Tree Mortality Models for Use in Broad-Scale U.S. Forest Carbon Projections." Forests 14, no. 2 (February 3, 2023): 302. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/f14020302.
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This study utilizes forest inventory and climate attributes as the basis for estimating models of wildfire risk and associated biomass loss (tree mortality) and then demonstrates how they can be applied in calculating CO2 emissions related to the incidence of wildfires from U.S. forests. First, we use the full set of over 150,000 FIA plots of national forest inventory and climatic parameters to estimate models of the annual probability of wildfire occurrence and loss of live tree biomass. Then, maps of the spatial allocation of both the model-derived probability of wildfire occurrences and tree mortality are presented at the national level. The probability of wildfire occurrences and tree mortality were defined by a complex non-linear association of climatic conditions and forest ownerships, available aboveground biomass, and the age of the stand. Then, we provide an example of how these models can estimate potential CO2 emissions from wildfires by using FIA inventory data. We estimated 6.10, 16.65, 22.75, and 31.01 million metric tons of annual CO2 emissions with low, medium, high, and catastrophic combustion rates, respectively, from forests due to wildfire in the continental U.S. The wildfire risk and biomass loss due to tree mortality maps can be used by landowners, managers, public agencies, and other stakeholders in identifying high-risk wildfire zones and the potential CO2 emissions. These equations can also help estimate fire risk and associated CO2 emissions for future climate conditions to provide insight into climate change-related wildfire occurrences.
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Haeussler, Sybille, and Yves Bergeron. "Range of variability in boreal aspen plant communities after wildfire and clear-cutting." Canadian Journal of Forest Research 34, no. 2 (February 1, 2004): 274–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/x03-274.
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Composition, structure, and diversity of vascular and nonvascular plant communities was compared 3 years after wildfire and clear-cutting in mesic trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) forests of the southern Canadian boreal forest. We examined mean response to disturbance and variability around the mean across four to five spatial scales. Four 1997 wildfires were located near Timmins, Ontario, and ten 19961997 clearcuts were located adjacent to the wildfires. We randomly located plots within mesic, aspen-dominated stands selected to minimize predisturbance environmental differences. Correspondence analysis separated wildfire and clearcut samples based on community composition: wildfires had more aspen suckers, Diervilla lonicera Mill., and pioneering mosses; clearcuts had more under story tall shrubs, forbs, bryophytes, and lichens. Live tree basal area averaged 1.7 m2/ha in wildfires and 1.8 m2/ha in clearcuts (p = 0.59), and understory community structure (the horizontal and vertical distribution of live and dead plant biomass) was not markedly different. Clearcuts had higher species richness with greater variance than wildfires across all spatial scales tested, but differences in beta and structural diversity varied with spatial scale. Generally, clearcutwildfire differences were more evident and wildfire variability greater at larger analytical scales, suggesting that plant biodiversity monitoring should emphasize cumulative effects across landscapes and regions.
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Steiner, Jean L., Jeffrey Wetter, Shelby Robertson, Stephen Teet, Jie Wang, Xiaocui Wu, Yuting Zhou, David Brown, and Xiangming Xiao. "Grassland Wildfires in the Southern Great Plains: Monitoring Ecological Impacts and Recovery." Remote Sensing 12, no. 4 (February 13, 2020): 619. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs12040619.
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Devastating wildfires in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas in 2016 and 2017 resulted in significant social, economic, and environmental losses, with the agricultural sector among those severely affected. Several satellite-based indices were evaluated as potential monitoring tools for post-wildfire ecological recovery and management of grasslands. All indices evaluated provided useful information and indicated rapid vegetation recovery from wildfire. The Leaf Water Stress Index (LSWI) and Gross Primary Productivity (GPP) showed a distinct response to the wildfire events, and differentiated between burned and unburned areas throughout the post-wildfire growing seasons better than the Normalized Difference Vegetative Index (NDVI) and Enhanced Vegetative Index (EVI). In particular, the LSWI may provide a useful tool for mapping the footprint of wildfire, with potential utility for organizations that provide post-fire recovery resources. The GPP, which estimates the biomass productivity of vegetation, can provide information to livestock operators to guide the re-stocking of cattle in the aftermath of wildfire. In sum, satellite-based proxies can provide timely information both to characterize a wildfire’s footprint and to guide post-fire grazing management in a manner that balances short term needs for forage with long-term productivity and ecological function.
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Grell, G., S. R. Freitas, M. Stuefer, and J. Fast. "Inclusion of biomass burning in WRF-Chem: impact of wildfires on weather forecasts." Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions 10, no. 12 (December 16, 2010): 30613–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acpd-10-30613-2010.
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Abstract. A plume rise algorithm for wildfires was included in WRF-Chem, and applied to look at the impact of intense wildfires during the 2004 Alaska wildfire season on weather simulations using model resolutions of 10 km and 2 km. Biomass burning emissions were estimated using a biomass burning emissions model. In addition a 1-D time dependent cloud model was used online in WRF-Chem to estimate injection heights as well as the final emission rates. It was shown that with the inclusion of the intense wildfires of the 2004 fire season in the model simulations the interaction of the aerosols with the atmospheric radiation lead to significant modifications of vertical profiles of temperature and moisture in cloud-free areas. On the other hand, when clouds were present, the high concentrations of fine aerosol (PM2.5) and the resulting large numbers of Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN) had a strong impact on clouds and microphysics, with decreased precipitation coverage and precipitation amounts during the first 12 h of the integration, but significantly stronger storms during the afternoon hours.
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López-Cruz, Susana del Carmen, Deb Raj Aryal, Carlos Alberto Velázquez-Sanabria, Francisco Guevara-Hernández, Andrea Venegas-Sandoval, Fernando Casanova-Lugo, Manuel Alejandro La O-Arias, et al. "Effect of Prescribed Burning on Tree Diversity, Biomass Stocks and Soil Organic Carbon Storage in Tropical Highland Forests." Forests 13, no. 12 (December 16, 2022): 2164. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/f13122164.
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Fire has been an integral part of ecosystem functioning in many biomes for a long time, but the increased intensity and frequency of wildfires often affect plant diversity and carbon storage. Prescribed burning is one of the alternatives to forest fuel management where the fire is controlled and carried out under a determined set of weather conditions and objectives. The effect of prescribed burning on plant diversity and carbon (C) storage has not been studied widely. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of prescribed burning on plant diversity indices, biomass stocks, and soil C storage in the tropical highland forests of Southern Mexico. We assessed plant diversity and carbon stocks at 21 sampling sites: seven with prescribed burning, seven non-burning, and seven with wildfires. We calculated tree biodiversity indices, stand structural properties, and species composition among burning treatments. We quantified C stocks in vegetation biomass by using an allometric equation and forest litter by direct sampling. We analyzed 252 soil samples for soil organic C content and other properties. The results showed that the biodiversity index was higher in sites with prescribed burning (Shannon index, H = 1.26) and non-burning (H = 1.14) than in wildfire sites (H = 0.36). There was a greater similarity in plant species composition between non-burning and prescribed burning sites compared to wildfire sites. Prescribed burning showed a positive effect on soil carbon storage (183.9 Mg C ha−1) when compared to wildfire (144.3 Mg C ha−1), but the difference was not statistically significant (p > 0.05) in biomass stocks. Prescribed burning in this study conserved plant diversity as well as soil carbon stocks compared to non-burning, the opposite of what we found in wildfires.
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Liang, Yutong, Rebecca A. Wernis, Kasper Kristensen, Nathan M. Kreisberg, Philip L. Croteau, Scott C. Herndon, Arthur W. H. Chan, Nga L. Ng, and Allen H. Goldstein. "Gas–particle partitioning of semivolatile organic compounds when wildfire smoke comes to town." Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 23, no. 19 (October 6, 2023): 12441–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-12441-2023.
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Abstract. Wildfires have become an increasingly important source of organic gases and particulate matter in the western USA. A large fraction of organic particulate matter emitted in wildfires is semivolatile, and the oxidation of organic gases in smoke can form lower-volatility products that then condense on smoke particulates. In this research, we measured the gas- and particle-phase concentrations of semivolatile organic compounds (SVOCs) during the 2017 northern California wildfires in a downwind urban area, using semivolatile thermal desorption aerosol gas chromatography (SV-TAG), and measured SVOCs in a rural site affected by biomass burning using cTAG (comprehensive thermal desorption aerosol gas chromatography mass spectrometry) in Idaho in 2018. Commonly used biomass burning markers such as levoglucosan, mannosan, and nitrocatechols were found to stay predominantly in the particle phase, even when the ambient organic aerosol (OA) was relatively low. The phase partitioning of SVOCs is observed to be dependent on their saturation vapor pressure, while the equilibrium absorption model underpredicts the particle-phase fraction of most of the compounds measured. Wildfire organic aerosol enhanced the condensation of polar compounds into the particle phase but not some nonpolar compounds, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
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Grell, G., S. R. Freitas, M. Stuefer, and J. Fast. "Inclusion of biomass burning in WRF-Chem: impact of wildfires on weather forecasts." Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 11, no. 11 (June 6, 2011): 5289–303. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acp-11-5289-2011.
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Abstract. A plume rise algorithm for wildfires was included in WRF-Chem, and applied to look at the impact of intense wildfires during the 2004 Alaska wildfire season on weather simulations using model resolutions of 10 km and 2 km. Biomass burning emissions were estimated using a biomass burning emissions model. In addition, a 1-D, time-dependent cloud model was used online in WRF-Chem to estimate injection heights as well as the vertical distribution of the emission rates. It was shown that with the inclusion of the intense wildfires of the 2004 fire season in the model simulations, the interaction of the aerosols with the atmospheric radiation led to significant modifications of vertical profiles of temperature and moisture in cloud-free areas. On the other hand, when clouds were present, the high concentrations of fine aerosol (PM2.5) and the resulting large numbers of Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN) had a strong impact on clouds and cloud microphysics, with decreased precipitation coverage and precipitation amounts during the first 12 h of the integration. During the afternoon, storms were of convective nature and appeared significantly stronger, probably as a result of both the interaction of aerosols with radiation (through an increase in CAPE) as well as the interaction with cloud microphysics.
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Sitnov, S. A., and I. I. Mokhov. "Transport of biomass burning products from Siberian wildfires into the Arctic." IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science 1040, no. 1 (June 1, 2022): 012005. http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/1040/1/012005.
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Abstract The study of the long-range transport of biomass burning products from Siberian wildfires into the Arctic atmosphere during the period of 2000-2019 is presented. An analysis of the characteristics of forest fires over the past 20 years revealed an increase in radiation power of an average Siberian wildfire, which is characterized by a statistically significant linear trend of 1.7 ± 1.0% / year. A joint analysis of fire activity in Siberian forests, as well as the contents of the black carbon (BC) and carbon monoxide (CO) contents in the Arctic atmosphere, indicates that extreme fire events force the development of regional anomalies in BC and CO. Correlation between the anomalies of BC (CO) over the Russian segment of the Arctic and the number of Siberian wildfires is found to be statistically significant at the α = 0.05 level and reach the value r = 0.77 (0.48) during the summer months. Using a linear regression model, an estimate of the sensitivity of changes in the total BC content and in the volume mixing ratio of CO at the 700-hPa level in the 1.910-8 kg⋅m-2 per 1000 fires and 0.4 ppbv per 1000 fires, respectively. The results of a detailed analysis of the long-range BC transport into the Arctic during catastrophic Siberian wildfires in the summer of 2019 are presented. It is shown that the considered episode was conditioned by the features of the large-scale atmospheric circulation characteristic for the atmospheric blocking event.
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Urbanski, S. P. "Combustion efficiency and emission factors for US wildfires." Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions 13, no. 1 (January 3, 2013): 33–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acpd-13-33-2013.
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Abstract. In the US wildfires and prescribed burning present significant challenges to air regulatory agencies attempting to achieve and maintain compliance with National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and Regional Haze Regulations. Wildland fire emission inventories (EI) provide critical inputs for atmospheric chemical transport models used by air regulatory agencies to understand and to predict the impact of fires on air quality. Fire emission factors (EF), which quantify the amount of pollutants released per mass of biomass burned, are essential input for the emission models used to develop EI. Over the past decade substantial progress has been realized in characterizing the composition of fresh biomass burning (BB) smoke and in quantifying BB EF. However, most BB studies of temperate ecosystems have focused on emissions from prescribed burning. Little information is available on EF for wildfires in the temperate forests of the conterminous US. Current emission estimates for US wildfires rely largely on EF measurements from prescribed burns and it is unknown if these fires are a reasonable proxy for wildfires. Over 8 days in August of 2011 we deployed airborne chemistry instruments and sampled emissions from 3 wildfires and a prescribed fire that occurred in mixed conifer forests of the northern Rocky Mountains. We measured the combustion efficiency, quantified as the modified combustion efficiency (MCE), and EF for CO2, CO, and CH4. Our study average values for MCE, EFCO2, EFCO, and EFCH4 were 0.883, 1596 g kg−1, 135 g kg−1, 7.30 g kg−1, respectively. Compared with previous field studies of prescribed fires in similar forest types, the fires sampled in our study had significantly lower MCE and EFCO2 and significantly higher EFCO and EFCH4. An examination of our study and 47 temperate forest prescribed fires from previously published studies shows a clear trend in MCE across US region/fire type: southeast (MCE = 0.933) > southwest (MCE = 0.922) > northwest (MCE = 0.900) > northwest wildfires (MCE = 0.883). The fires sampled in this work burned in areas reported to have moderate to heavy components of standing dead trees and dead down wood due to insect activity and previous fire, but fuel consumption data was not available for any of the fires. However, fuel consumption data was available for 18 prescribed fires reported in the literature. For these 18 fires we found a significant negative correlation (r =-0.83, p-value = 1.7e-5) between MCE and the ratio of heavy fuel (large diameter dead wood and duff) consumption to total fuel consumption. This observation suggests the relatively low MCE measured for the fires in our study resulted from the availability of heavy fuels and conditions that facilitated combustion of these fuels. More generally, our measurements and the comparison with previous studies indicate that fuel composition is an important driver of variability in MCE and EF. This study only measured EF for CO2, CO, and CH4; however, we used our study average MCE to estimate wildfire EF for PM2.5 and 13 other species using EF–MCE linear relationships reported in the literature. The EF we derived for several non-methane organic compounds (NMOC) were substantially larger (by a factor of 1.5 to 4) than the published prescribed fire EF. Wildfire EFPM2.5 estimated in our analysis is approximately twice that reported for temperate forests in a two widely used reviews of BB emission studies. Likewise, western US wildfire PM2.5 emissions reported in a recent national emission inventory are based on an effective EFPM2.5 that is only 40% of that estimated in our study. If the MCE of the fires sampled in this work are representative of the combustion characteristics of wildfires across western US forests then the use of EF based on prescribed fires may result in a significant underestimate of wildfire PM2.5 and NMOC emissions. Given the magnitude of biomass consumed by western US wildfires, the failure to use wildfire appropriate EFPM2.5 has significant implications for the forecasting and management of regional air quality. The contribution of wildfires to NAAQS PM2.5 and Regional Haze may be underestimated by air regulatory agencies.
Dissertations / Theses on the topic "Biomass wildfires"
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Bayer, Andreas Paul Adolf. "Biomass forest modelling using UAV LiDAR data under fire effect." Master's thesis, ISA, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/21269.
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Mestrado em Engenharia Florestal e dos Recursos Naturais / Instituto Superior de Agronomia. Universidade de LisboaThe main goal of the study is to analyse the possibility of quantifying the loss of biomass in burned forest stands using Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data. Since wildfires are not uncommon in Mediterranean areas, it is useful to quantify the magnitude of fire damage in forests. With the use of remote sensing, it is possible to plan post-fire recovery management and to quantify the losses of biomass and carbon stock. Mata Nacional de Leiria (MNL) was chosen, because, after the fire in October 2017, it showed areas with low and medium-high fire severity. MNL is divided in several rectangular management units (MU). To achieve our objective, it was necessary to find a MU with burned and unburned areas. In this selection process, we used Sentinel-2 images. The fire severity was estimated by deriving a spectral index related with the effects of fire and to compute the temporal difference (pre- minus post-fire) of this index, the delta normalized burn ratio (DNBR). Forest inventory was carried out in four plots installed in the selected MU. Allometric equations were used to estimate values of stand aboveground biomass. These values were used to fit a relationship with data extracted from LiDAR cloud metrics. The LiDAR data were acquired with a VLP-16 Velodyne LiDAR PUCK™ mounted on an Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) at an altitude of 60 m above the ground. The point clouds were then processed with the FUSION software until a cloud metrics was generated and then regression models were used to fit equations related to LiDAR-derived parameters. Two biomass equations were fit, one with the whole tree metrics having a R² = 0,95 and a second one only considering the tree crown metrics presenting a R² = 0,93. The state of the forest (unburned/burned) was significant on the final equation
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Zheng, Lu. "Examining the impact of wildfire smoke aerosol on clouds, precipitation, and radiative fluxes in Northern America and Russia using a fully coupled meso-scale model WRF-Chem-SMOKE and satellite data." Diss., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/1853/52338.
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We developed a fully-coupled meso-scale model WRF-Chem-SMOKE by incorporating a selection of smoke emission models and improving the representations of aerosol-cloud interactions in the microphysics scheme. We find that the difference in smoke emissions between different datasets, even in one fire cluster, could lead to significant discrepancies in modeled AODs. The integrated smoke emission dataset improves the prediction of modeled AODs. We find that the modeled cloud properties and precipitation are extremely sensitive to the smoke loadings. Higher smoke loadings suppress precipitation initially, because of smoke-induced reduction of the collision-coalescence and riming processes, but ultimately cause an invigoration of precipitation.
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Savadogo, Patrice. "Dynamics of Sudanian savanna-woodland ecosystem in response to disturbances /." Umeå : Dept. of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 2007. http://epsilon.slu.se/200764.pdf.
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Tencé, Florent. "Apport de la mesure lidar dans l'étude des aérosols et nuages stratosphériques polaires et de leurs perturbations climatiques." Electronic Thesis or Diss., université Paris-Saclay, 2023. http://www.theses.fr/2023UPASJ004.
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À mesure que la compréhension des interactions entre la chimie de l'ozone stratosphérique et le changement climatique progresse, les conséquences de l'évolution des températures autant que celui des perturbations de la charge stratosphérique en aerosols deviennent un sujet d'intérêt scientifique de premier plan.Il est bien établi que le volcanisme est la principale source d'aérosols stratosphériques et que les épisodes de volcanisme majeurs s'associent à des anomalies négatives d'ozone. Toutefois, l'effet à haute latitude d'une surcharge en aerosols soufrés, précurseurs des nuages stratosphériques polaires (PSC), reste mal connu.De plus, des injections stratosphériques d'aérosols carbonés sont observées lors d'importants feux sur les dernières années. Au Canada en 2017 et en Australie en 2020, des masses d'aérosols comparables à celles émises par le volcanisme modéré ont été rapportées. Cela continue de nourrir un fort intérêt scientifique, le carbone n'étant pas naturellement présent en stratosphère et les effets de son apport significatif sont encore à étudier. Aussi, il est attendu que le changement climatique favorise l'occurrence de feux majeurs, rajoutant la question des tendances à long terme de la charge en aérosols à la nécessité de caractériser finement l'effet d'une telle perturbation.Précurseurs de la destruction saisonnière d'ozone, les PSC, formés sur les aerosols, sont au coeur de ces enjeux. Le lidar est un instrument adapté à l'étude de ces phases condensées. À l'aide du lidar de la station française antarctique Dumont d'Urville (DDU) et des instruments spatiaux pertinents, cette thèse étudie les tendances et processus liés aux PSC et aux perturbations en aérosols stratosphériques.Les mesures acquises à DDU utilisent différentes classifications de PSC pour illustrer des processus fins uniquement accessibles par la géométrie d'un instrument sol. La paramétrisation des PSC repose sur une classification concise et representative, et la position côtière de la station est un atout de par la grande variabilité des observations de particules qu'elle permet. Une tendance du nombre de jours de PSC par an à DDU de 2007 à 2020 est établie par la combinaison de mesures lidar et de temperatures. Cette tendance, de -4,4 jours de PSC par an par décennie, est le reflet d'une tendance opposée des températures stratosphériques sur cette période. Cette dernière, récemment confirmée par d'autres études, questionne l'évolution long terme dans le contexte du changement climatique.Les feux australiens en 2020 ont injecté une masse inédite d'aérosols en stratosphère, dont une partie a été transportée jusqu'aux hautes latitudes australes. Le lidar de DDU a pu sonder ces aérosos de janvier à octobre 2020. Cela a permis une caractérisation riche des panaches au fil du temps. Leur présence au sein du vortex a été confirmée et pose la question délicate des intéractions entre aérosols carbonés et PSC. La forte destruction d'ozone reportée à DDU en octobre 2020 ne peut être comparée qu'à l'année 2015, marquée par une surcharge en aérosols due à l'éruption du Calbuco. Nous soulignons également l'enjeu technologique autour de la speciation des aerosols sur les signatures fines.Pour s'adapter aux questions scientifiques récentes, une campagne de terrain a permis l'évolution du lidar en place à DDU vers une source laser multispectrale infrarouge / visible / ultraviolet. Cette configuration offre de nouvelles possibilités, dont un accès à la granulométrie qui peut directement résoudre la speciation des aerosols et nuages. L'éruption historique survenue au Tonga en janvier 2022 a injecté une grande quantité d'aérosols, en partie détectés à DDU de février à septembre 2022. Cette thèse inclut donc des travaux sur cet événement utilisant l'instrumentation de campagne en tant que perspective technique et surtout scientifique pour l'étude des aerosols et nuages à haute latitudeAs the understanding of the interactions between stratospheric ozone chemistry and climate change progresses, the consequences of both temperature change and perturbations in stratospheric aerosol loading are becoming a topic of major scientific interest.It is well established that volcanism is the main source of stratospheric aerosols and that major volcanic episodes are associated with negative ozone anomalies. However, the high latitude effect of an overload of sulphate aerosols, precursors of polar stratospheric clouds (PSC), remains poorly understood.In addition, stratospheric injections of carbonaceous aerosols have been observed during major fires in recent years. In Canada in 2017 and Australia in 2020, aerosol masses comparable to those emitted by moderate volcanism were reported. This is of great scientific interest, as carbon does not naturally occur in the stratosphere and the effects of its significant intake are yet to be studied. Also, climate change is expected to favour the occurrence of major fires, adding the question of long-term trends in aerosol loading to the need to finely characterise the effect of such a disturbance.PSCs, formed on aerosols, are the precursors of seasonal ozone destruction and are at the heart of these issues. Lidar is a suitable instrument for studying these condensed phases. Using the lidar at the French Antarctic station Dumont d'Urville (DDU) and relevant space instruments, this thesis investigates trends and processes related to PSCs and stratospheric aerosol perturbations.Measurements acquired at DDU use different classifications of PSCs to illustrate fine processes that are only accessible through the geometry of a ground-based instrument. The parameterisation of the PSCs is based on a concise and representative classification, and the coastal location of the station is an advantage due to the high variability of the particle observations it allows. A trend in the number of PSC days per year at DDU from 2007 to 2020 is established by combining lidar and temperature measurements. This trend, of -4.4 PSC days per year per decade, reflects an opposite trend in stratospheric temperatures over this period. The latter, recently confirmed by other studies, raises questions about long-term trends in the context of climate change.The Australian fires in 2020 injected an unprecedented mass of aerosols into the stratosphere, some of which was transported to the high southern latitudes. The DDU lidar was able to probe these aerosols from January to October 2020. This allowed a rich characterisation of the plumes over time. Their presence within the vortex was confirmed and raises the delicate question of the interactions between carbonaceous aerosols and PSC. The high ozone depletion reported at DDU in October 2020 can only be compared to the year 2015, marked by an aerosol overload due to the Calbuco eruption. We also highlight the technological challenge around aerosol speciation on fine signatures.In order to adapt to recent scientific questions, a field campaign allowed the evolution of the lidar installed at DDU towards a multispectral infrared / visible / ultraviolet laser source. This configuration offers new possibilities, including access to granulometry that can directly resolve aerosol and cloud speciation. The historical eruption in Tonga in January 2022 injected a large amount of aerosols, partly detected at DDU from February to September 2022. This thesis therefore includes work on this event using field instrumentation as a technical and especially scientific perspective for the study of aerosols and clouds at high latitudes
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Ordou, Niloofar. "Investigation of Physiochemical Properties of Size-resolved Biomass Burning/Local Wildfire Aerosols." Thesis, Griffith University, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/410471.
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Overall, particulate matter (PM) and household air pollution are at the root of 2.9 million deaths annually. One of the sources of particulate matter is biomass burning (BB) smoke. These particles can be formed by natural fires, prescribe agriculture fires, and as a result of burning fuel for cooking and heating houses. BB smoke particles can have various health effect and environmental impacts depending on a number of factors. Altering ozone refraction, they can act as cloud condensation nuclei. Health risks associated with these particle have been studied for long. Pulmonary, heart, carcinogen (especially due to compounds like Poly Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH).
First and foremost, the nature of the fuel has a direct impact on the composition of the particulate matter and gaseous particles formed as the combustion products. Woody, Grass, or leafy fuels have been found to be composed of different compounds with different mass fractions. For example, cellulose content in wood is higher than other types of biomass fuel. As a results, it is logical to seek similar compound ending up in the particulate matter. The scale and intensity of the fire is the other influential factor. Although the effect of natural wildfire (bushfire) smoke particles would not be as direct and immediate as those evolving from the fuel burnt in household uses, long term effect of exposure to these particles spreading within the atmosphere month and even years after the fire has happened should not be overlooked. Besides, in very close vicinities to the fires, in fresh smoke less than minutes old, there always exist high number of finer particles which are health-wise of more concern compared to larger particle (as these finer particles penetrate into lower parts of the respiratory system through diffusion). Weather conditions, like elevation, wind speed, humidity, and sunlight are also influential factors in the formation of these particles. The other crucial factor is the phase of burning, i.e. Ignition, flaming, mixed state, and smouldering. Numerous studies have investigated the effect of these conditions on the size distribution, number concentration and physiochemical properties of smoke particles.
PM properties of BB smoke have been investigated all around the globe for different biomass types and different burning conditions. Black carbon (BC) and organic carbon (OC) content of the PM are the most documented investigated items as they contributes to the high mass percentage of the PM. Other ubiquitous PM components include anhydrosugars, alcohols, PAHs, acids, water soluble ions, and trace elements. Gaseous particles resulted from BB carry with them sulphur oxides (SOx) and nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile and semi volatile organic compounds. Each of these compounds and materials are known to have serious health and climate impacts.
Numerous studies have used different devices and technologies to investigate the effect of fuel type and amount, and phase of burning and operational mode on different properties of fresh and aged smokes in case of small scale controlled or laboratory burns, massive natural wildfires, or air-forced cook stove gasifiers.
In Australia, despite contributing to more than 7% of biomass burning emissions annually, there are quite a few exhaustive studies on the properties of bushfire particles. The importance of research redoubles considering the mega-fires taking place in Australia 2019-2020 which ravaged an estimate of 19 million hectares. This study is aimed to make a contribution in filling this gap and finding novel ideas in order to investigate different factors influencing Australian local vegetation fires which could potentially effect the environment and human health. Three journal articles are published based on this study, parts of which are used in different sections throughout this report. Citations are made in the beginning of the main relevant chapters. Abstract summaries are presented briefly here: First paper: Under controlled laboratory settings and small scale fires of vegetation collected from Toohey forest, it was found that leaves classification burn with flaming dominant phases producing intense black smoke which is consisted of larger particles as opposed to more smouldering-dominant burning of the branch and grass classifications releasing white smoke emissions which contain finer particles. Elemental analysis detected nine main elements in all three classifications and in three size fractions of smoke particulate matter samples (from 14.1μm to below 2.5μm). Potassium, a biomarker, was the most prevalent element among the samples followed by sulphur. Less abundant elements were found to be Na, Al, Mg, Zn, Si, Ca, and Fe.
Second paper: Particle size distribution in biomass smoke was observed for different burning phases, including flaming and smouldering, during the combustion of nine common South Queensland Australian vegetation representatives. Smoke particles generated during smouldering phase of combustions were found to be coarser as compared to flaming aerosols for all hard species. In contrast, for leafy species this trend was inversed. In addition, the combustion process was investigated over the entire duration of burning by acquiring every second data for all nine species. Particles were separately characterised in two categories: fine particles (diameter below 200nm), and course particles with the diameter larger than 200nm. It was found that fine particles contribute to more than 90 percent of the total fresh smoke particles for all investigated species.
Third paper: smoke samples were collected during prescribed fire burns conducted between May 2018 and August 2019across different regions in Toohey forest, Queensland, Australia. Particle size/mass distribution as well as size-segregated elemental content were measured and the results were compared against the values obtained from the combustion of similar vegetation mixture under controlled laboratory settings. It was found that the concentration levels of coarse particles (sizes above 1 μm) were higher during field burn events, whereas the contributions of PM1 (smaller than 1 μm) was higher in case of laboratory burns. Following elemental analysis of different size classes of smoke particles (<0.96μm, 0.96-2.5μm, and >2.5μm) confirmed the presence of eight elements in both laboratory and field cases (Na, K, Mg, Ca, Zn, Al, Fe, S), however, levels of Ca, Mg, Al, and S were noticeably higher in prescribed fire results. Observed discrepancies between field and laboratory data could be attributed to the effect of top soil and duff layers present in prescribed fires/natural wildfires and absence thereof in the laboratory burns, which reveals the influential role of the aforementioned layers on the overall air quality status across bushfires-affected areas.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Eng & Built Env
Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology
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Jarrett, Adam R. "Landowner perception, awareness, and adoption of wildfire programs in the Southern United States." [College Station, Tex. : Texas A&M University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2963.
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Murphy, Margretta A., and Margretta A. Murphy. "Interactions of Wildfire, Landscape Position, and Soil Depth in Structuring Post-Fire Soil Microbial Communities." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/621017.
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Landscape position and depth in the soil column influence the movement of microbial substrate throughout a catchment, from upslope areas to downslope areas, thereby impacting nutrient cycling rates and capabilities of the microbial communities in those areas. Wildfire also shapes the biogeochemistry of the landscape, creating a mosaic with variations in substrate type and concentration that also influence microbial communities and biogeochemical cycling. Nitrogen (N) in particular is altered by wildfire, as it is easily volatilized and the removal of organic matter (OM) reduces N inputs. We aimed to understand how landscape position and soil depth, first and foremost, influence microbial communities and their N-cycling, but also how this may differ from wildfires and their relative impacts on the soil microbial communities. Landscape position proved to influence few soil and microbial characteristics, while movement from soil surface to deep in the column and the incidence of wildfire caused many variations in soil physical and biogeochemical cycling properties. The interaction of landscape position and soil depth also showed little variation in any measurements, while wildfire and soil depth interactions showed drastic changes that indicate high order controls over the soil microbial community. It can be surmised that while landscape position is important for many soil properties, it is soil depth and wildfire that truly control the soil microbial communities and their N-cycling capabilities.
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Yan, Bo. "Characterization and source apportionment of ambient PM2.5 in Atlanta, Georgia: on-road emission, biomass burning and SOA impact." Diss., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1853/37151.
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Characterization and Source Apportionment of Ambient PM2.5 in Atlanta, Georgia: On-Road Emission, Biomass Burning and SOA Impact
Bo Yan
260 Pages
Directed by Drs. Armistead G. Russell and Mei Zheng
Various airborne PM2.5 samples were collected in the metropolitan Atlanta and surrounding areas, which are directly impacted or dominated by on-road mobile and other typical urban emissions, regional transport sources, prescribed burning plumes, wildfire plumes, as well as secondary sources with anthropogenic and biogenic nature in origin. Detailed PM2.5 chemical speciation was conducted including over one hundred of GC/MS-quantified organic compounds, organic carbon (OC), water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC), elemental carbon (EC), ionic species, and tens of trace metals. Day-night, seasonal and spatial variations of PM2.5 characterization were also studied. Contributions of PM2.5 major sources were identified quantitatively through the receptor source apportionment models. These modeling results, especially on-road mobile source contributions and secondary organic carbon (SOC) were assessed by multiple approaches. Furthermore, new season- and location-specific source profiles were developed in this research to reflect real-world and representative local emission characterizations of on-road mobile sources, aged prescribed burning plumes, and wildfire plumes. Secondary organic aerosol (SOA), a major component of PM2.5 in the summer, was also explored for sources and contributions.
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Simões, Luís Filipe Rosa. "LiDAR based Biomass Estimation System for Forested Areas." Master's thesis, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/10362/126160.
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In continental Portugal, forest fires are considered the biggest and most serious cause
of forest deterioration and therefore the introduction of forest management mechanisms
and biomass monitoring are imperative for a better future. However, conducting field
studies on a large scale is a very expensive and time-consuming task. Alternatively,
through remote sensing via a LiDAR, it becomes possible to map, with high accuracy,
forest parameters such as tree height, diameter at breast height or tree canopy length in
order to carry out other relevant estimates such as above ground biomass.
In this sense, this dissertation aims to develop a system capable of, through algorithms
and filters of point cloud processing, as statistical outlier removal, progressive morphological
filters and region growing segmentation, extract in detail,a digital terrain model
and correctly detect the number of trees in a given area, proceeding to the measurement
of some interesting variables from the point of view of a forest inventory. Thus, testing
data of different characteristics, our detection method obtained positive results, with all
the average detection rates above 80 %.Em Portugal continental, os incêndios florestais são considerados a maior e mais grave causa de deterioramento da floresta e por isso a introdução de mecanismos de gestão florestal e monitorização da biomassa são imperativos para um futuro melhor. No entanto, realizar estudos de campo em grande escala é uma tarefa muito dispendiosa e demorosa. Em alternativa, através da deteção remota por vias de um LiDAR torna-se possível mapear, com elevado rigor, parâmetros florestais como altura das arvores, diâmetro do tronco ou comprimento da copa da arvore de modo a proceder a outras relevantes estimações como a biomassa. Neste sentido, esta dissertação teve como objetivo o desenvolvimento de um sistema capaz de, através de algoritmos e filtros de processamento de nuvens de pontos, como remoção de outliers estatístico, filtros morfologicos progressivos e segmentação por crescimento de regiões anexas , extrair com detalhe, um modelo digital do terreno e detetar corretamente o número de arvores numa determinada área, procedendo à medição de algumas variáveis interessantes do ponto de vista do inventário florestal. Assim, testando dados de diferentes características, o nosso método de deteção obteve resultados positivos, com todas as taxas deteção média superiores a 80 %.
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Sexton, Timothy Ogden. "Ecological effects of post-wildfire management activities (salvage-logging and grass-seeding) on vegetation composition, diversity, biomass, and growth and survival of Pinus ponderosa and Purshia tridentata /." 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/1957/9596.
Full textBooks on the topic "Biomass wildfires"
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Willems, Louise E. Wildfires, fuels, and invasive plants. Hauppauge, N.Y: Nova Science Publishers, 2009.
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Skog, Kenneth. Evaluation of silvicultural treatments and biomass use for reducing fire hazard in western states. Madison, WI]: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory, 2006.
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Resources, United States Congress Senate Committee on Energy and Natural. Colorado wildfires: Hearing before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, One Hundred Twelfth Congress, second session, to discuss the recent Colorado wildfires, focusing on lessons learned that can be applied to future suppression, recovery, and mitigation efforts, Colorado Springs, CO, August 15, 2012. Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 2012.
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Sikkink, Pamela G. Predicting fire severity using surface fuels and moisture. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, 2012.
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Taylor, Stephen W. Biomass consumption and smoke emissions from contemporary and prehistoric wildland fires in British Columbia. Victoria, B.C: Canadian Forest Service, 1996.
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Keane, Robert E. Spatial variability of wildland fuel characteristics in northern Rocky Mountain ecosystems. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, 2012.
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Alvarado, Ernesto. Fotoseries para la cuantificación de combustibles forestales de México: Bosques montanos subtropicales de la Sierra Madre del Sur y bosques templados y matorral submontano del norte de la Sierra Madre Oriental = Photo series for quanifying forest fuels in Mexico : montane subtropical forests of the Sierra Madre del Sur, and temperate forests and montane shrubland of the northern Sierra Madre Oriental. Seattle, WA: University of Washington, College of Forest Resources, 2008.
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Service, United States Forest. Biomass to energy : forest management for wildfire reduction, energy production, and other benefits: PIER final project report. Sacramento, Calif.]: California Energy Commission, 2010.
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Justice, Christopher, Krishna Prasad Vadrevu, and Toshimasa Ohara. Biomass Burning in South and Southeast Asia. Taylor & Francis Group, 2021.
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Justice, Christopher, Krishna Prasad Vadrevu, and Toshimasa Ohara. Biomass Burning in South and Southeast Asia: Mapping and Monitoring, Volume One. Taylor & Francis Group, 2021.
Find full textBook chapters on the topic "Biomass wildfires"
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Poduška, Zoran, and Snežana Stajić. "The Cost of Forest Fires: A Socioeconomic Analysis." In Fire Hazards: Socio-economic and Regional Issues, 123–35. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50446-4_10.
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AbstractThis chapter aims to show the phenomenon of forest fires from socioeconomic aspects to present the readers with a new perspective. We start from the assumption that fire in forest ecosystems has a positive and negative impact, which can be represented by an appropriate valuation system. The basis for such an assumption was found in the paradox of fire (in natural ecosystems), which has had human attention from the very beginning of the human population. From early views on social dependence on fire to a modern perspective, that fire is a catastrophic phenomenon in nature. Today, it can be assumed that our valuation system is set at a point where fire harms nature. This tacit acceptance has become commonplace in fire reporting where the importance of fire in removing biomass especially coniferous stands, maintaining open spaces for grazing and hunting, reducing catastrophic wildfires, in carbon balance and water regulation or scientific knowledge is almost completely omitted. Contemporary streams in nature and forest science and practice point out that fire is an ecosystem service providing many services with trade-offs between fire prevention and the provision of ecosystem services. Here, we explain why fire in natural ecosystems become relevant for science after the eighties. We present that the extent of fire damage is more than 0.012% of Worlds GDP in this decade. Major socioeconomic driving factors of forest fires are presented too. The chapter presents examples of ecosystem services and economic impacts provided by wildfires.
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Robinson, Jennifer M., William G. Chaloner, and Timothy P. Jones. "Pre-Quaternary Records of Wildfire." In Sediment Records of Biomass Burning and Global Change, 253–70. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 1997. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59171-6_11.
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"Major Wildfires at the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary." In Global Biomass Burning. The MIT Press, 1991. http://dx.doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/3286.003.0069.
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Silva, Flávio C., Márcia Santos, Jéssica Moura, Ana C. Vilas Boas, Manuel A. Matos, and Luís A. C. Tarelho. "Preventing wildfires through smart management and valorisation of residual forest biomass into biochar: experiences from the BioValChar project." In Advances in Forest Fire Research 2022, 1507–12. Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.14195/978-989-26-2298-9_230.
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Forest management operations adequately integrated in the forestry value-chain are the gold standard in wildfire prevention. However, these operations generate considerable amounts of residual forest biomass (RFB) that cannot be legally disposed in land and further require suitable management. Residual biomass also includes highly flammable plants existing in the Portuguese forest such as gorse, broom, giant reed and acacia. Quite often wildfires in Portugal are linked with spreading of this residual biomass that promotes fuel accumulation. Besides deleterious impacts on rural and forestry economy, wildfires are also a driver for desertification and soil degradation. Alternative uses for this residual biomass to promote its valorisation and enable proper models of management of forest areas are needed, thus providing economic and environmental benefits towards decreasing of the fuel load. Though this biomass has reasonable carbon content and heating value, they also present inorganic composition (e.g. Na, K, Cl) that promotes operating problems in thermochemical conversion processes as combustion and gasification for useful energy production because of ash related problems (e.g., sintering/fouling), thus restricting their use in such applications. As such, biochar production by pyrolysis is a potential alternative to generate added-value. During pyrolysis the volatile matter of biomass is released to the gaseous phase, resulting a solid product, biochar, which is carbon-rich and contains most of the inorganics (nutrients) of the raw biomass. Exposure of biomass inorganics as free ashes is prevented in this process, and hence pyrolysis mitigates their negative effects. Nonetheless, the efficient pyrolysis of these types of biomass requires development of novel solutions optimized for energy and environmental performance. Enhancing of the energetic sustainability of the process and minimizing of the environmental impacts associated to the emission of gaseous pollutants are aspects of major relevance. Additionally, the biochar quality depends on biomass type, technology and operating conditions used. The BioValChar project (https://biovalchar.web.ua.pt/en/) seeks to answer these challenges related to valorisation of low-quality residual biomass through production of biochar by pyrolysis, which can return back to forest and rural soils. This approach will provide both carbon/nutrient cycling and synergies within forestry management, wildfire prevention, improvement of soil quality and rural development, under the circular economy principle. The research focus valorisation of residual forest biomass in full-control pyrolytic batch and continuous (auger-type reactor) processes, and testing of the resulting biochar performance as soil amendment. Moreover, a prototype of an integrated mobile unit for auto-thermal and continuous biochar production by pyrolysis of biomass is also being developed, by using the pyrolysis gases to provide the energetic needs of the process. Here we present the project overview, as well as some preliminary results on pyrolytic valorisation of one selected biomass (acacia) into biochar through distinct operating modes and conditions.
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Osswald, Tobias, Ana Patrícia Fernandes, Carla Gama, and Ana Isabel Miranda. "Effects of the wildfires of August 2021 in the air quality of Athens through a numerical simulation." In Advances in Forest Fire Research 2022, 1083–89. Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.14195/978-989-26-2298-9_163.
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Near real-time emission estimations can be computed based on the fire radiated power (FRP) and the biomass consumption coefficients for each vegetation type. Therefore, the application of the methodology is limited by the knowledge of the biomass consumption (BC) coefficients, as the studies estimating the coefficients offer results on specific vegetation types. This study focuses on calculating biomass consumption coefficients for the most affected vegetation types in the Maule Region (Chile). We needed to estimate the biomass consumption rate to calculate the BC coefficients. Then, we computed the BC rate by estimating the biomass consumed in a specific burn time. We computed the time between VIIRS image acquisitions to assess the burning time. BC coefficients were obtained for four vegetation types: pine plantation, scrub, native oak-hualo forest, and arborescent scrub. In addition, we analyzed the variations of the BC coefficients by computing the BC coefficients on each time frame. Large variations were observed in the oak-hualo and pine plantation, which were related to the greater availability of biomass and variable fire behaviour
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Calvo, Leonor, Sara Huerta, Víctor Fernández-García, José Manuel Fernández-Guisuraga, Paula Monte, Reyes Tárrega, Luz Valbuena, et al. "The loss of ecosystem multifunctionality in Pinus pinaster forests as one of the main footprints of large wildfires." In Advances in Forest Fire Research 2022, 1345–50. Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.14195/978-989-26-2298-9_204.
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The main objective of this study was to analyse the effect of recurrence and burn severity on ecosystem multifunctionality in Pinus pinaster forests. We selected a large wildfire that occurred in the Sierra del Teleno in 2012 (NW Spain), where we differentiated two recurrences and two burn severity situations. As a result, four scenarios were identified: low recurrence plus low severity, low recurrence plus high severity, high recurrence plus low severity, high recurrence plus high severity. In each one, a number of 1 m x 1 m plots proportional to the burned area were established. Three years after the wildfire we evaluated in each plot: (1) percentage of covered soil, (2) total percentage cover of herbaceous species, (3) percentage cover of each woody species, (4) total plant species richness. Also, a composite soil sample was collected from each plot. Chemical (total organic carbon, total nitrogen and available phosphorus) and microbiological (microbial biomass carbon) properties were analysed in each soil sample. The following variables were used as indicators of ecosystem functions: percentage of covered soil, total cover of herbaceous species, Pinus pinaster cover, total plant richness, total organic carbon, total soil nitrogen, available phosphorus and microbial biomass carbon. Another indicator of ecosystem functions was calculated: floral colours of shrub species diversity using the Shannon index. The values of each ecosystem function indicator were standardized. The indicators/functions of regulating ecosystem services were: Climate regulation (indicator: total % of organic soil carbon) and Erosion protection (indicator: covered soil %). The functions/ indicators of supporting ecosystem services were: soil fertility (indicator: total nitrogen and available phosphorous) and soil quality (indicator: microbial biomass C). The indicators/functions of cultural ecosystem services were: species diversity (indicator: plant species richness) and aesthetic value (indicator: the Shannon index of floral colours). The functions/indicators of provisioning ecosystem services were: grass for livestock (indicator: % cover of herbaceous species) and timber production (indicator: % cover of Pinus pinaster). The results indicated that all scenarios apart from low recurrence plus low severity negatively affected the multifunctionality of the ecosystems.
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Marcos, Elena, Sara Huerta, Víctor Fernández-García, Iván Prieto, Rayo Pinto, Gemma Ansola, Luis Saénz de Miera, and Leonor Calvo. "Mulching treatments favour the recovery of ecosystem multifunctionality after a large wildfire in Northwest Spain." In Advances in Forest Fire Research 2022, 1234–39. Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.14195/978-989-26-2298-9_187.
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Wildfires are a widespread phenomenon in forests across the Mediterranean Basin but have increased in severity and extent in recent decades. Post-fire treatments are measures that help recover burned vegetation and their functionality but to what extent they also help recover soil functionality is currently unknown. The main objective of this study was to assess the effect of post-fire treatments on ecosystem multifunctionality after a large wildfire in the Cabrera mountain range in 2017 (NW Spain) where close to 10000 Ha of forest were burnt. At the end of 2017 and during 2018, the administration applied different post-fire treatments in high fire severity affected areas: i) straw mulching, ii) woody debris and iii) subsoiling and iv) mechanical hole afforestation. In each treatment, we established ten 2 x 2 m plots and ten adjacent untreated burned plots and collected a composite soil sample from each plot four years after the fire (2021). We calculated regulating services as the standardized mean of total soil organic C (climate regulation), soil water repellence (water regulation) and soil aggregation (soil protection). Supporting services were measured as the standardized mean of mineral N-NH4+ and N-NO3- and available P (soil fertility), β-glucosidase, urease and acid phosphatase (nutrient cycling) and microbial biomass (soil quality). Ecosystem multifunctionality was measured as the standardized mean of all functions measured. Application of straw mulch and woody debris increased regulating ecosystem services in relation to burned control plots. Afforestation with holes had not impact but subsoiling decreased regulating ecosystem services in relation to burned control plots. Post-fire treatments did not have any effect on supporting services. Straw mulch, Woody debris and afforestation with holes improved ecosystem multifunctionality when compared with subsoiling methods. These results show that post-fire stabilisation treatments, in particular straw mulching have a significant positive impact on regulating services and are effective measures in restoring the ecosystem multifunctionality, helping develop effective management based-decisions for the recovery of ecosystem services and functioning after large wildfires.
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Hurteau, Matthew D., Marissa G. Goodwin, Harold S. J. Zald, and Malcolm P. North. "Increasing potential wildfire energy flux from climate-driven mortality and fuel aridity." In Advances in Forest Fire Research 2022, 1153–56. Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.14195/978-989-26-2298-9_175.
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Moisture stored in live and dead vegetation acts as a regulator on fire behaviour and area burned. Climate change is altering the distribution of live and dead fuels in forests through drought and insect-induced mortality and simultaneously making dead fuels more flammable because of decreasing fuel moisture. These system changes, both of which are driven by increasing temperature, have the potential to increase the heat flux from combustion, contributing to an increased risk of fires in affected areas becoming plume-dominated. In the southern Sierra Nevada of California and the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, drought and insect outbreaks have increased tree mortality rates, increasing the proportion of biomass that is in dead versus live fuel pools. We sought to determine the contribution that high rates of mortality could have onpotential changes in energy release (energy release component and fire radiant energy) for mixed-conifer forests in the southern Sierra Nevada and lodgepole pine forests in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, the site of two large wildfires during the 2020 fire season. We found substantial increases in dead fuels and substantial decreases in fuel moisture during 2020, which increased the potential fire radiative energy. Our results demonstrate that climate-driven tree mortality and increasing temperatures that lead to lower fuel moisture are increasing the amount of energy stored in biomass that is available for combustion.
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Oliva, Patricia, Eugenia Espinosa, and Idania Briceño. "Estimation of biomass consumption coefficients for FRP-based forest fires emission calculations." In Advances in Forest Fire Research 2022, 1090–94. Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.14195/978-989-26-2298-9_164.
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The lengthening of the fire season in Portugal has been understudied, although there is evidence of changes in recent decades. In this brief study, we focused on the annual cycles of fire activity and related meteorological fire danger, thus bypassing the problem of subjective definition of what should mark the beginning and end of the fire season. Based on the daily time series of burned areas and occurrences collected in mainland Portugal by state services from 1980 to 2018, we searched for significant changes in the monthly and daily relative in-year distributions. In particular, an exceedance date method was used to determine day-scale trends in the anticipation/prolongation of fire activity in the year. We found an unequivocal diminishing trend in the proportion of annual burned area that occurs in the summer months (July to September), which was offset by an increase in the fraction from January to June. Apparently, the month of March plays an important role in these changes that should be clarified in future analyses. The daily analysis shows a clear shift of the cumulative curves of burned area to the left, which suggests an in-year anticipation of fire activity. Considering the dates of exceedance of the 15% of annual burned area, the found linear trend implies an anticipation rate of 1.34 days per year. Next, we evaluated seasonal changes in fire weather through the annual cycle of cumulative DSR, computed from daily FWI values. The results show, on average, an earlier increase in DSR when comparing the latter second half of the period (2000-2018) with the first one former (1980-1999). This difference develops from April to the end of September. Interestingly, a closer look shows a first increase in the gap as early as March, which disappears in April before steadily increasing again. Finally, we suggested that up-to-date knowledge of the interannual and interdecadal changes in the seasonality of both wildfires and fire weather is a decisive component, but not the only one, of a comprehensive and complex management of the fire season. A good illustration of this complexity is the fact that the annual definition of the fire season window necessarily affects the annual fire cycle by conditioning the ignition calendar.
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Mohammadpour, Pegah, Crismeire Isbaex, Emilio Chuvieco, Domingos Xavier Viegas, and Carlos Viegas. "Vegetation Mapping with Random Forest using Sentinel 2- A case study for Lousã region, Portugal." In Advances in Forest Fire Research 2022, 444–62. Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.14195/978-989-26-2298-9_71.
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Vegetation mapping requires accurate information to allow its use in applications such as sustainable forest management against the effects of climate change and the threat of wildfires. Remote sensing provides a powerful resource of fundamental data at different spatial resolutions and spectral regions, making it an essential tool for vegetation mapping and biomass management. Due to the ever-increasing availability of free data and software, satellites have been predominantly used to map, analyze, and monitor natural resources for conservation purposes. This study aimed to map vegetation from Sentinel-2 (S2) data in a complex and mixed vegetation cover of the Lousa district in Portugal. We used 10 multispectral bands with a spatial resolution of 10m, four vegetation indices including Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Green Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (GNDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), and Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI). After applying Principal Component Analysis (PCA) on the 10 S2A bands, four texture features including Mean (ME), Homogeneity (HO), Correlation (COR), and Entropy (EN)were derived for the first three Principal Components. After defining the land use classes by object-based, the Random Forest (RF) classifier was applied. The map accuracy will be evaluated by the confusion matrix, using the metrics of Overall Accuracy (OA), Producer Accuracy (PA), User Accuracy (UA), and Kappa Coefficient (K). The described classification methodology is expected to show a high overall accuracy for vegetation mapping.
Conference papers on the topic "Biomass wildfires"
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O’Rourke, ANASTASIA, Dean Takahashi, OLIVER LEITNER, JANA VANDERGOOT, SINEAD CROTTY, JUSTIN FREIBERG, HAO WANG, et al. "Slash Storage: Carbon Vaults to Help Mitigate Near Term Wildfire and Climate Change Pressure." In 2022 AIA/ACSA Intersections Research Conference. ACSA Press, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.35483/acsa.aia.inter.22.27.
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Over the past century, fire suppression and increased human settlement at the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) have led to dramatic increases in the risk and impact of catastrophic wildfires.1 Climate change contributes to the problem by increasing temperatures and aridity, and by reducing precipitation in fire prone regions.2 A 2016 study found that climate change doubled the cumulative forest fire area in the American West since 1984.3 The direct and indirect costs of wildfire include emergency firefighting costs, property losses, impairment to air and water quality, injuries and fatalities, healthcare costs, infrastructure shutdowns, and lost revenues. Architects working near the WUI are required by law to specify construction materials and create site plans with fire suppression and life safety in the context of severe wildfires in mind. Working successfully in the WUI demands that designers have a deeper understanding of the carbon cycling, land management practices, and funding obstacles connected to forest systems. This paper discusses the work of Yale University’s Carbon Containment Lab (CC Lab) to develop a building typology called the Carbon Vault, a low-cost, nature-based structure for storing carbon in woody biomass. Carbon vaults address the need to reduce and contain wood fuel in forests that are prone to severe wildfire. A fire-resistant form of Dowel Laminated Timber (DLT) mass timber, called Residual DLT, is presented in this paper as a construction material for carbon vaults in the WUI. Residual DLT addresses the wood waste of forest land management practices, especially those in forests prone to severe fire, by creating an opportunity to engage carbon offset markets.
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Sorkhani, Hamidreza Afrand, Mohammad Avatefi Hemmat, Taghi Shamekhi, Elaheh Mohseni, and Osman Devrim Elvan. "Forest Laws and Wildfire: A Comparative Legal Study of Iran, France, Türkiye and South Africa." In 3rd International Congress on Engineering and Life Science. Prensip Publishing, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.61326/icelis.2023.17.
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Global warming and climate changes have caused an increase in the frequency and intensity of forest fires in recent years, which in turn exacerbates the climate change speed with the emissions of carbon from burned plant biomass. This paper deals with the comparative study of forest fire in the forest laws of Iran, France, Türkiye and South Africa countries to identify the national solutions in dealing with wildfires and to suggest the best solutions. Comparative law is among the best ways to study the legal solutions of specific countries to learning from each other’s and improve the laws. Comparative law has five steps: the first step is the determination of the scope and delimitations of the study, which in this research includes the selection of the mentioned four countries and the topic of forest fires; The second step is the description and analysis of legal materials; The third step is the Comparison of laws and show the similarities and differences; The fourth step is the explanation of the reasons for similarities and differences and the fifth step is the evaluation of laws and provide best solutions of the studied countries in the field of wildfire control. The categories extracted from the content of legal articles and the classification of categories with a common meaning together showed that the legal measures of combat wildfire can be classified into four main pillars as well as the following sub pillars: 1- Measures before fire include a) limitations, regulations and preventive measures, b) cleansing, c) screening, firebreak and prescribed fire, d) fire protection associations, e) determination of high-risk areas and fire risk rating. 2- Measures during fire outbreaks include a) Custodian of fighting fire and providing equipment, b) right of way, servitude, possession, intervention, c) firefighting tactics and use of controlled fire. 3- Measures after the fire include a) Improvement and sanitation measures, b) Prohibitions, regulations, evaluation and review, c) Revival and restoration, d) Incentives, compensation, and 4- Crimes and punishments. Evaluation of the legal solutions of the studied countries showed that some countries have performed well in some pillars and sub-pillars and poorly in some others. South Africa provides considerable provisions by establishing a law specific to fire. However, French legislators have done well in this field by setting up appropriate legal requirements and prohibitions during fire season. While the forest firefighting laws of Türkiye and Iran are scattered throughout the text of the forest law and are not sufficient. Finally, by using the strengths of the laws of the studied countries, the weak points of the national forest laws are identified and recommendations suggest to modify. Also, this research introduces a legal framework to classify national forest laws in the field of forest fire management.
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Peshev, Zahary Y., Tanja N. Dreischuh, Eleonora N. Toncheva, and Dimitar V. Stoyanov. "Lidar observations and characterization of biomass burning aerosols over Sofia: Long-range transport of forest wildfire smoke." In Seventeenth International School on Quantum Electronics: Laser Physics and Applications, edited by Tanja N. Dreischuh and Albena T. Daskalova. SPIE, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.2014321.
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Kenarsari, Saeed Danaei, and Yuan Zheng. "A Numerical Study of Fast Pyrolysis of Beetle Killed Pine Trees." In ASME 2011 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition. ASMEDC, 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/imece2011-62991.
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Since 1990s, as a result of unprecedented drought and warm winters, mountain pine beetles have devastated mature pine trees in the forests of western North America from Mexico to Canada. Especially, in the State of Wyoming, there are more than 1 million acres of dead forest now. These beetle killed trees are a source of wildfire and if left unharvested will decay and release carbon back to the atmosphere. Fast pyrolysis is a promising method to transfer the beetle killed pine trees into bio-oils. In the present study, an unsteady state mathematical model is developed to simulate the fast pyrolysis process, which converts solid pine wood pellets into char (solid), bio-oils (liquid) and gaseous products in the absence of oxidizer in a temperature range from 500°C to 1000°C within short residence time. The main goal of the study is to advance the understanding of kinetics and convective and radiative heat transfer in biomass fast pyrolysis process. Conservation equations of total mass, species, momentum, and energy, coupled with the chemical kinetics model, have been developed and solved numerically to simulate fast pyrolysis of various cylindrical beetle killed pine pellets (10 mm diameter and 3 mm thickness) in a reactor (30 mm inside diameter and 50 mm height) exposed to various radiative heating flux (0.2 MW/m2 to 0.8 MW/m2). A fast pyrolysis kinetics model for pine wood that includes competitive path ways for the formation of solid, liquid, and gaseous products plus secondary reactions of primary products has been adapted. Several heat transfer correlations and thermo property models available in the literature have been evaluated and adapted in the simulation. Finite element method is used to solve the conservation equations and a 4th order Runge-Kutta method is used to solve the chemical kinetics. Unsteady-state two dimensional temperature and product distributions throughout the entire pyrolysis process were simulated and the simulated product yields were compared to the experimental data available in the literature. This study demonstrates the importance of the secondary reactions and appropriate convective and radiative modeling in the numerical simulation of biomass fast pyrolysis.
Reports on the topic "Biomass wildfires"
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Fagúndez, Jaime, Laura Lagos, José Antonio Cortés Vázquez, and Flávia Canastra. Galician Wild Ponies. Socio-Economic Context and Environmental Benefits: Galicia Area Report and Case Study for GrazeLIFE (LIFE18 PRE NL 002). Publishing Service-University of A Coruña, February 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.17979/spudc.9788497498234.
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The University of A Coruña is partner of the GRAZELIFE LIFE preparatory project (LIFE 18 PRE/NL002). We contributed to the main aim of the project of promoting sustainable grazing by large herbivores, with the study of the particular case of Galician wild ponies as a natural grazing semi-wild land use model, and alternative land uses of short and long-term afforestation, extensive grazing and abandonment. We selected two sub-areas in Galicia representing different situations in dominant land uses and the wild ponies’ system. Xistral, in the north, is a protected Natura 2000 site covered by wet heaths and bogs, ponies are owned by commoners that are mainly cattle farmers. Groba, in the south, is a drier area with dominance of forestry use and high frequency of wildfires, where ponies are owned by non-professional farmers. We performed twenty personal semi-structured interviews with pony owners, land owners and related experts from different sectors (afforestation, tourism, conservation NGOs), and performed two focus groups. We discussed topics such as their relation with ponies, the challenges they face, their demands and feelings on the policies, including CAP subsidies or compensations for wolf attacks, and their expectations for the future. In the field, we selected representative stands of each land use model in each sub-area and performed a systematic record of plant species, measures of plant biomass, and collected soil samples. Measures were used as proxies of biodiversity changes, carbon storage and wildfire risk, to compare between the selected models.
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Fagúndez, Jaime, Laura Lagos, José Antonio Cortés Vázquez, and Flávia Canastra. Galician Wild Ponies. Socio-Economic Context and Environmental Benefits: Galicia Area Report and Case Study for GrazeLIFE (LIFE18 PRE NL 002). Publishing Service-University of A Coruña, February 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.17979/spudc.9788497498241.
Full textAbstract:
The University of A Coruña is partner of the GRAZELIFE LIFE preparatory project (LIFE 18 PRE/NL002). We contributed to the main aim of the project of promoting sustainable grazing by large herbivores, with the study of the particular case of Galician wild ponies as a natural grazing semi-wild land use model, and alternative land uses of short and long-term afforestation, extensive grazing and abandonment. We selected two sub-areas in Galicia representing different situations in dominant land uses and the wild ponies’ system. Xistral, in the north, is a protected Natura 2000 site covered by wet heaths and bogs, ponies are owned by commoners that are mainly cattle farmers. Groba, in the south, is a drier area with dominance of forestry use and high frequency of wildfires, where ponies are owned by non-professional farmers. We performed twenty personal semi-structured interviews with pony owners, land owners and related experts from different sectors (afforestation, tourism, conservation NGOs), and performed two focus groups. We discussed topics such as their relation with ponies, the challenges they face, their demands and feelings on the policies, including CAP subsidies or compensations for wolf attacks, and their expectations for the future. In the field, we selected representative stands of each land use model in each sub-area and performed a systematic record of plant species, measures of plant biomass, and collected soil samples. Measures were used as proxies of biodiversity changes, carbon storage and wildfire risk, to compare between the selected models.
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Lawrence, David, Mike Tercek, Amber Runyon, and Jeneva Wright. Historical and projected climate change for Grand Canyon National Park and surrounding areas. National Park Service, 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.36967/2301726.
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Globally, anthropogenic climate change is one of the greatest threats to resources in protected areas. This report examines historical and projected climate change across the Greater Grand Canyon Landscape (GGCL), including Grand Canyon National Park. Grand Canyon National Park warmed significantly from 1895-2020 (annual mean increase of 1.89? F/century), with temperatures increasing at a faster rate from 1970-2020 (6.31? F/century). Warming occurred at all elevations and seasons across the GGCL, but rates differed spatially. Average annual total precipitation within Grand Canyon National Park did not change significantly over either period examined (1895-2020; 1970-2020). A variety of changes in the region of Grand Canyon National Park have been detected and attributed, at least in part, to anthropogenic climate change, including reduced soil moisture (and associated drought), reduced Colorado River flow, doubling of the area burned by wildfire across the western United States, reduced regeneration of low-elevation ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir as well as pinyon pine and juniper populations, northward shifts in many bird species distributions and declines of bird species occupancy in the Mojave Desert, and reduced bumble bee species richness and abundance (key pollinators). To help managers understand and plan around a range of plausible future climates, we present two plausible but contrasting climate futures for the Greater Grand Canyon Landscape, characterized at mid-century (2040-2069) and late-century (2070-2099). Examining multiple plausible futures avoids over-optimizing management strategies for a single projected future that may not occur. Overarching patterns that emerged from both climate futures include additional warming (average, as well as extreme temperatures), seasonal increases in extreme precipitation events, fewer freezing days and days with snow, and higher moisture deficit (a correlate with landscape dryness, conditions conducive to fire, and vegetation stress). The selected climate futures differed in terms of 1) the degree of warming, 2) whether winter precipitation increases or decreases, 3) whether annual precipitation increases or stays similar, 4) whether drought conditions increase or decrease, and 5) whether runoff increases or decreases. Runoff is projected to occur earlier under both climate futures and is projected to exhibit a more episodic pattern. Based on a literature review, projected changes to the physical, ecological, and cultural resource domains of the region resulting from anthropogenic climate change include: ? Increasing drought risk and aridification ? Reduced Colorado River flow ? Reduced groundwater infiltration ? Decreasing runoff (from snow or rain) in the spring, summer, and fall, and increasing runoff in the winter ? Increasing occurrence of large fires ? Increasing invasive grasses in the Mojave Desert ecosystems west of the park, providing more fuel for wildfire ? Exacerbated post-fire erosion and sediment in Grand Canyon watersheds ? Increased episodes of drought-induced tree mortality ? Upslope shifts of the elevational zones of pinyon-juniper woodland, ponderosa pine forest, and spruce-fir forest, as well as increases in non-forest areas and aboveground biomass declines ? Reduced abundance of riparian vegetation that tolerates water inundation ? Increasing invasive plant distribution and abundance, favoring their establishment and productivity ? Colonization of the GGCL by some bird species and extirpation of others ? Increasing non-native fish populations relative to native fishes ? Declining butterfly populations ? Increasing temperatures will increase visitation, especially during winter and shoulder seasons ? Exacerbation of existing threats to archeological resources, cultural landscapes, and historic structures, as well as emergent vulnerabilities related to climate change One goal of this work is to support the Resource Stewardship Strategy (RSS) process that Grand Canyon National Park plans to undertake. We anticipate that connecting the climate changes described here to the climate sensitivities of resources within the park will play a critical role in setting goals and strategies during development of the RSS, as well as proactively adapting to anticipated changes.
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Gage, Edward, Linda Zeigenfuss, Hanem Abouelezz, Allison Konkowski, David Cooper, and Therese Johnson. Vegetation response to Rocky Mountain National Park’s elk and vegetation management plan: Analysis of 2008–2018 data. National Park Service, June 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.36967/2299264.
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Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) developed the Elk and Vegetation Management Plan (EVMP) to address well-documented declines in the ecological condition of aspen stands and riparian communities from high levels of elk herbivory. The EVMP aims to reduce the impacts of elk on vegetation and restore the natural range of variability in the elk population and affected plant communities, including preventing the loss of aspen clones within high elk-use areas, restoring montane riparian willow cover and height within suitable habitat, and reducing of levels of elk grazing on herbaceous vegetation. The EVMP described a range of management actions including reductions in the size of the elk herd and the installation of fencing to reduce herbivory levels and facilitate recovery in degraded communities. The EVMP established a monitoring protocol in focal communities to assess progress towards these vegetation goals and facilitate adaptive management. RMNP has collected data quantifying biomass offtake in upland herbaceous and riparian communities, willow height and cover, and aspen stand structure and regeneration periodically since implementation of the plan began in 2008. This report summarizes the results of analyses of EVMP data collected from 2008–2018, the last year comprehensive measurements were made. The EVMP was developed with a focus on the primary elk winter range in the upper montane zone on the east side of RMNP. The plan distinguishes core elk winter range, where elk concentrate during winter, and noncore winter range areas that typically have less elk use. Data were also collected in the Kawuneeche Valley in the headwaters of the Colorado River on the west side of the park, an area supporting extensive wet meadows and areas once dominated by willow. Data were also collected to investigate the effects of wildland fires that burned through the winter range in 2012 to determine the potential for using fire as a management tool to achieve EVMP goals. The overwintering elk population in the park has declined, from its peak of 1,500 animals in 2001, and over the course of EVMP implementation, from 614 animals in 2009 to 124 animals in 2019. Declines in the overwintering elk population may be best explained by increased cow elk harvest outside of the park, and, most notably, by a change in seasonal migration patterns and habitat use that have elk moving to lower elevation wintering areas following the fall rut. In sites in aspen communities, stand structure was changed little or declined across sampling periods in unfenced plots with continued patterns of little regeneration and recruitment and steady progression toward stands dominated by large-diameter trees. However, there was a progression towards taller sapling heights inside fenced plots and recruitment of small diameter tree-sized stems. Fencing had large and positive effects on aspen stand structure, with different patterns observed in fenced and unfenced core winter range and noncore winter range. Increased recruitment was observed across the winter range but occurred mainly inside fenced plots. Aspen stem counts varied between time periods and in relation to wildfire, with fenced and burned plots on the core winter range having higher stem counts by 2018 than unfenced and unburned plots. Willow height and cover increased over time in sampled sites, but positive trends were generally restricted to sites in fenced areas. Willow height also increased on noncore (all unfenced) winter range sites. Willow in unfenced core winter range sites had only minor increase in height from baseline (2008 for most sites) to 2018, but willow in fenced plots had greater height increases over the same time period. Noncore winter range willow sites had modest height increases over the 10-yr period. Mean willow cover increased nearly 5-fold compared to baseline conditions within the core winter range fenced areas and roughly 1.5-fold in noncore winter range. Willow cover was greater in unfenced than fenced plots at baseline, but the pattern was reversed in 2013 and 2018. The highest cover occurred in 2018 in fenced core winter range plots (mean = 70.8%) and unfenced noncore winter range plots (mean = 68.6%). Mean cover increased from 14.6% at baseline to 25.3% in 2013 and 70.8% in 2018 in fenced core winter range plots. Mean willow cover changed little in unfenced core winter range plots between baseline and 2018, although the range of cover values increased over time, and willow cover increases were modest in the noncore winter range. Fencing reduced or eliminated browsing from plots located inside fences, but offtake varied widely among unfenced plots. Patterns of willow browse intensity differed management subgroups (e.g., core and noncore winter range), and generally showed a downward trend between baseline and 2018 measurements. Herbaceous offtake in upland communities was measured in the first sample period (baseline–2013) to assess levels of grazing on herbaceous vegetation, however it was determined that the associated EVMP objectives had been achieved so measurements were discontinued after 2013. Continued monitoring of upland shrubs indicated no shift from herbaceous dominated to shrub dominated communities after 2013. Noncore upland plots had higher shrub cover than core winter range plots across all time periods, but most differences between year and core/noncore had low probability of effect. Cover for individual species varied over time and winter range plots. Moose presence has increased in winter range aspen and willow sites over the past decade, while beaver presence at our monitoring sites has decreased. Results indicate that RMNP is making progress toward the vegetation objectives set out in the EVMP, however positive trends were most pronounced in plots protected from ungulate herbivory through fencing. Aspen recruitment was greatest in fenced plots. Likewise, trajectories of willow height and cover were positive in fenced winter range plots. Results demonstrate that fencing is an effective means of improving condition in aspen and willow habitats. Changes outside the fences were slower and less pronounced than inside the fences, however, the positive (if small) increases in willow height and cover and aspen regeneration as well as decreases in upland herbaceous offtake, indicate that decreased wintering elk populations are also contributing to improvement of habitat conditions on the elk winter range. In the Kawuneeche Valley, which has not traditionally been heavily used by overwintering elk but does experience summer elk and moose use, poor and declining habitat condition were recorded in unfenced willow and aspen sites.