Fire activity and hydrological dynamics in the past 5700 years reconstructed from Sphagnum peatlands along the oceanic–continental climatic gradient in northern Poland

Marcisz, Katarzyna; Gałka, Mariusz; Pietrala, Patryk; Miotk-Szpiganowicz, Grażyna; Obremska, Milena; Tobolski, Kazimierz; Lamentowicz, Mariusz

doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2017.10.018

Cited by 24 publications

(22 citation statements)

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“…While progress has been made in determining charcoal source areas, the quantification of absolute burned area from charcoal records is still challenging (Adolf et al, 2018). We therefore interpret the charcoal signal as indicative of relative trends in biomass burning (see Marlon et al, 2016). Regarding the depositional envi- (Metzger et al, 2005).…”

Section: Geographical Location and Charcoal Site Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…4.1). Higher levels of burning over large areas in Europe during the early Holocene were generally associated with warmer summers and/or drier conditions, whereas a stronger effect of land cover for the middle to late Holocene was de-tected particularly at low to mid-latitudes (Vannière et al, 2016;Dietze et al, 2018;Molinari et al, 2018).…”

Section: The Impact Of Climate On Fire Via Conditions Conducive To Fimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Humans have likely altered the temporal and spatial structure of fuel availability and timing and frequency of ignitions since the early Holocene (Pfeiffer et al, 2013;Marlon et al, 2016;Vannière et al, 2016;Andela et al, 2017;Dietze et al, 2018) and potentially even earlier (Kaplan et al, 2016). While ignitions tend to increase until the population reaches intermediate density, human-caused change in land cover from forest to arable land and associated fuel limitation and landscape fragmentation may result in a decline in biomass burning (Pfeiffer et al, 2013;Andela et al, 2017).…”

Section: The Human Impact On Firementioning

confidence: 99%

“…It should be noted that inferences of fire regime from sedimentary charcoal have their limitations, in particular with respect to the cause of fires. Therefore, if humans have significantly increased fire frequency since prehistory (Vannière et al, 2016) or earlier (Kaplan et al, 2016), the impact of postdeforestation mosaic landscape heritage and the land use on fuel amounts may have reduced the probability of large fires and consequently the amount of charcoal preserved in the depositional environments. Nevertheless, our fuel-fire relationship using pooled charcoal and pollen records reflects a regional pattern, and individual sites may more effectively depict small-scale alterations in land cover and burning pattern (Gavin et al, 2006).…”

Section: The Human Impact On Firementioning

confidence: 99%

“…A fundamental limitation to understanding fire-climatevegetation interactions based on observations or modelling approaches is that they are rooted in the modern environment. Yet, present-day ecosystems and fire regimes carry the legacies of past anthropogenic impact and climates (Marlon et al, 2016;Vannière et al, 2016). Palaeoecological studies based on pollen, plant macrofossils and charcoal sedimentary records provide centennial-to-millennial data sets to decipher past vegetation and fire dynamics and associated drivers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fire hazard modulation by long-term dynamics in land cover and dominant forest type in eastern and central Europe

et al. 2020

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Abstract. Wildfire occurrence is influenced by climate, vegetation and human activities. A key challenge for understanding the risk of fires is quantifying the mediating effect of vegetation on fire regimes. Here, we explore the relative importance of Holocene land cover, land use, dominant functional forest type, and climate dynamics on biomass burning in temperate and boreo-nemoral regions of central and eastern Europe over the past 12 kyr. We used an extensive data set of Holocene pollen and sedimentary charcoal records, in combination with climate simulations and statistical modelling. Biomass burning was highest during the early Holocene and lowest during the mid-Holocene in all three ecoregions (Atlantic, continental and boreo-nemoral) but was more spatially variable over the past 3–4 kyr. Although climate explained a significant variance in biomass burning during the early Holocene, tree cover was consistently the highest predictor of past biomass burning over the past 8 kyr. In temperate forests, biomass burning was high at ∼45 % tree cover and decreased to a minimum at between 60 % and 70 % tree cover. In needleleaf-dominated forests, biomass burning was highest at ∼ 60 %–65 % tree cover and steeply declined at >65 % tree cover. Biomass burning also increased when arable lands and grasslands reached ∼ 15 %–20 %, although this relationship was variable depending on land use practice via ignition sources, fuel type and quantities. Higher tree cover reduced the amount of solar radiation reaching the forest floor and could provide moister, more wind-protected microclimates underneath canopies, thereby decreasing fuel flammability. Tree cover at which biomass burning increased appears to be driven by warmer and drier summer conditions during the early Holocene and by increasing human influence on land cover during the late Holocene. We suggest that long-term fire hazard may be effectively reduced through land cover management, given that land cover has controlled fire regimes under the dynamic climates of the Holocene.

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Section: Geographical Location and Charcoal Site Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Impact Of Climate On Fire Via Conditions Conducive To Fimentioning

confidence: 99%