Evaluating Effects of Post-Fire Climate and Burn Severity on the Early-Term Regeneration of Forest and Shrub Communities in the San Gabriel Mountains of California from Sentinel-2(MSI) Images
Abstract:Studying the early changes in post-fire vegetation communities may improve the overall resilience of forests. The necessity for doing so was demonstrated by the Bobcat Fire, which seriously threatened the central San Gabriel Mountains and the Angeles National Forest in California. This study aimed to monitor and quantify the effects of climatological and topographic conditions along with burn severity on early (within 1 year) post-fire forests and shrubs community regeneration. In this study, we used Sentinel-… Show more
“…The dNBR classification shows high correlations with corresponding pre-fire and post-fire ground measurements of vegetation parameters such as total woody aboveground biomass, tree density, and numbers of small trees in the affected areas. To increase the bin resolution for higher burn severities, we refined the classification by further separating the "moderate" and "high severity" classes according to Hoscilo et al (2013), into "moderate, " "high, " and "very high" severity classes using the European Forest Fire Information Service (EFFIS) dNBR classification (e.g., Liu et al, 2022) for the higher burn severity classes.…”
Section: Regional Trends In Peatland Fire Burn Severitymentioning
Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of the Island of Borneo, has an estimated 45,000 km2 of tropical peatland and represents one of the largest stocks of tropical peat carbon. However, over the last three decades, the peatlands of Indonesia, and Kalimantan in particular, have been heavily degraded or destroyed by drainage of peatland swamps, deforestation, land cover change for agriculture, and intentional burning. Many studies have examined degradation of peat forests and the associated frequency of fires, often focusing on specific regions of Kalimantan over limited periods. Here, we present our results of a spatially comprehensive, long-term analysis of peatland fires in Kalimantan over more than two decades from early 2001 to the end of 2021. We examined the effects of changing climate conditions, land cover change, and the regulatory framework on the total burned area and frequency and severity of peatland fires over a 21-year period by combining extensive datasets of medium-resolution and high-resolution satellite imagery. Moreover, surface fire intensity was modeled for four dominant land use/land cover types to determine how land use change alters fire behavior. Our results confirm a consistent and strong spatiotemporal correlation between hydro-climatological drivers associated with El Niño conditions on peatland fire frequencies and burned peatland area. Changes in the number of fires and burn severity are visible over time and are caused by a combination of large-scale meteorological patterns and changing regulations. A significant relative increase of the “high” and “very high” severity across all peatland fires in Kalimantan was found for the latest period from 2015 through 2021 by 12.1 and 13.4%, compared to the two previous 7-year periods from 2001 to 2007 period and from 2008 to 2014, respectively, whereas the total peatland area burned decreased in 2015 to 2021 by 28.7% on average compared to the previous periods. The results underline the importance of a comprehensive approach considering physical aspects of overarching climate conditions while improving political and regulatory frameworks to mitigate the negative effects of burning tropical peatlands.
“…The dNBR classification shows high correlations with corresponding pre-fire and post-fire ground measurements of vegetation parameters such as total woody aboveground biomass, tree density, and numbers of small trees in the affected areas. To increase the bin resolution for higher burn severities, we refined the classification by further separating the "moderate" and "high severity" classes according to Hoscilo et al (2013), into "moderate, " "high, " and "very high" severity classes using the European Forest Fire Information Service (EFFIS) dNBR classification (e.g., Liu et al, 2022) for the higher burn severity classes.…”
Section: Regional Trends In Peatland Fire Burn Severitymentioning
Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of the Island of Borneo, has an estimated 45,000 km2 of tropical peatland and represents one of the largest stocks of tropical peat carbon. However, over the last three decades, the peatlands of Indonesia, and Kalimantan in particular, have been heavily degraded or destroyed by drainage of peatland swamps, deforestation, land cover change for agriculture, and intentional burning. Many studies have examined degradation of peat forests and the associated frequency of fires, often focusing on specific regions of Kalimantan over limited periods. Here, we present our results of a spatially comprehensive, long-term analysis of peatland fires in Kalimantan over more than two decades from early 2001 to the end of 2021. We examined the effects of changing climate conditions, land cover change, and the regulatory framework on the total burned area and frequency and severity of peatland fires over a 21-year period by combining extensive datasets of medium-resolution and high-resolution satellite imagery. Moreover, surface fire intensity was modeled for four dominant land use/land cover types to determine how land use change alters fire behavior. Our results confirm a consistent and strong spatiotemporal correlation between hydro-climatological drivers associated with El Niño conditions on peatland fire frequencies and burned peatland area. Changes in the number of fires and burn severity are visible over time and are caused by a combination of large-scale meteorological patterns and changing regulations. A significant relative increase of the “high” and “very high” severity across all peatland fires in Kalimantan was found for the latest period from 2015 through 2021 by 12.1 and 13.4%, compared to the two previous 7-year periods from 2001 to 2007 period and from 2008 to 2014, respectively, whereas the total peatland area burned decreased in 2015 to 2021 by 28.7% on average compared to the previous periods. The results underline the importance of a comprehensive approach considering physical aspects of overarching climate conditions while improving political and regulatory frameworks to mitigate the negative effects of burning tropical peatlands.
“…Meanwhile, the adaptive changes in vegetation community structure to environmental filters intuitively reflect large-scale changes in vegetation regeneration (Liu, Fu, et al, 2022), as vegetation regeneration ultimately serves the vegetation community. Unfortunately, there is no consensus regarding the effects of litter production on vegetation regeneration, and the varying results in different studies greatly limit our understanding.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Overall, this series of regeneration processes is the basis of plant vegetation community structure and composition and even determines the direction of vegetation community succession (Guerra et al, 2020; Thrippleton et al, 2018). Meanwhile, the adaptive changes in vegetation community structure to environmental filters intuitively reflect large‐scale changes in vegetation regeneration (Liu, Fu, et al, 2022), as vegetation regeneration ultimately serves the vegetation community. Unfortunately, there is no consensus regarding the effects of litter production on vegetation regeneration, and the varying results in different studies greatly limit our understanding.…”
1. Rapid vegetation regeneration and increased litter production have been predicted under the global greening scenario, but the overall relationship between litter production and vegetation regeneration has not been well addressed. 2. To bridge this knowledge gap, we quantified the responses of the seed stage, seedling stage, plant development stage and vegetation community to litter using 3193 paired observations at the global scale based on the effect size across different categories. 3. Overall, litter significantly decreased seedling establishment and density by 28.4% and 27.7%, increased plant height by 17.4% and decreased species richness by 15.4%. Seed germination at the seed stage was not directly controlled by litter but was positively regulated by changes in soil moisture from litter. In contrast, litter type and litter mass displayed negative effects on the seedling stage, but litter promoted seedling survival with increasing elevation. Moreover, litter composition and plant type dominated the effects of litter on the plant development stage, showing that the increase in litter production might favour the development of broadleaved trees rather than other plants. 4. The present results suggest that litter could restrict the stage from seed to seedling but facilitate plant development after the seedling establishment and slightly affect the vegetation community except for species richness. These results provide deep insight into the relationships between litter production and vegetation regeneration at different stages, which are important for developing models accounting for vegetation regeneration responses to ongoing global greening.
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