Effects of Vegetation Belt Movement on Wildfire in the Mongolian Plateau over the Past 40 Years

Abstract

The frequency and intensity of fires are increasing because of warmer temperatures and increased droughts, as well as climate-change induced fuel distribution changes. Vegetation in environments, such as those in the mid-to-high latitudes and high elevations, moves to higher latitudes or elevations in response to global warming. Over the past 40 years, the Mongolian Plateau has been arid and semi-arid, with a decrease in growing season vegetation in the southwest and an increase in growing season vegetation in the northeast. The northward movement of vegetation has brought fires, especially in the Dornod, Sukhbaatar, and Kent provinces near the Kent Mountains, and has become more obvious in the past 20 years. The occurrence of a dead fuel index (DFI) with high probability is distributed in northern Mongolia, the border area between China and Mongolia, and the forest-side meadow-steppe region of the Greater Khingan Mountains. These findings suggest that vegetation is moving northward because of climate change and this presents a challenge of future warming spreading fire northward, adding material to the study of the relationship between the northward movement of global vegetation and fires.