Fires, Vegetation, and Human—The History of Critical Transitions During the Last 1000 Years in Northeastern Mongolia

Słowiński, Michał; Obremska, Milena; Dashtseren, Avirmed; Adiya, Saruulzaya; Łuców, Dominika; Mroczkowska, Agnieszka; Halaś, Agnieszka; Woszczyk, Michał; Szczuciński, Witold; Kruk, Andrzej; Lamentowicz, Mariusz; Stańczak, Joanna; Rudaya, Natalia

doi:10.2139/ssrn.4043617

Cited by 1 publication

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“…1a). For example, humans have directly modified vegetation type and density for 77% of the Earth's terrestrial surface, primarily through agriculture, with myriad consequences for fuel characteristics and ignition sources (Balch et al, 2017a;Bowman et al, 2011;Marlon et al, 2008;Słowiński et al, 2022;Watson et al, 2018). Understanding the characteristics and sensitivity of fire regime change is crucial for sustainable land management as well as climate change mitigation, adaptation, and planning (Cochrane & Bowman, 2021).…”

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confidence: 99%

Assessing changes in global fire regimes

Sayedi

2023

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Human activity has fundamentally altered wildfire on Earth, creating serious consequences for human health, global biodiversity, and climate change. However, it remains difficult to predict fire interactions with land use, management, and climate change, representing a serious knowledge gap and vulnerability. We used expert assessment to combine opinions about past and future fire regimes from 98 wildfire researchers. We asked for quantitative and qualitative assessments of the frequency, type, and implications of fire regime change from the beginning of the Holocene through the year 2300. Respondents indicated that direct human activity was already influencing wildfires locally since at least ~12,000 years BP, though natural climate variability remained the dominant driver of fire regime until around 5000 years BP. Responses showed a ten-fold increase in the rate of wildfire regime change during the last 250 years compared with the rest of the Holocene, corresponding first with the intensification and extensification of land use and later with anthropogenic climate change. Looking to the future, fire regimes were predicted to intensify, with increases in fire frequency, severity, and/or size in all biomes except grassland ecosystems. Fire regime showed quite different climate sensitivities across biomes, but the likelihood of fire regime change increased with higher greenhouse gas emission scenarios for all biomes. Biodiversity, carbon storage, and other ecosystem services were predicted to decrease for most biomes under higher emission scenarios. We present recommendations for adaptation and mitigation under emerging fire regimes, concluding that management options are seriously constrained under higher emission scenarios.

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