Investigating Drought Events and Their Consequences in Wildfires: An Application in China

Abstract

Understanding the impact of drought on fire dynamics is crucial for assessing the potential effects of climate change on wildfire activity in China. In this study, we present a series of multiple linear regression (MLR) models linking burned area (BA) during mainland China’s fire season from 2001 to 2019, across seven regions, to concurrent drought, antecedent drought, and time trend. We estimated burned area using Collection 6 Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectradiometer (MODIS) and drought indicators using either the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) or the self-calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index (sc-PDSI). Our findings indicate that the wildfire season displays a spatial variation pattern that increases with latitude, with the Northeast China (NEC), North China (NC), and Central China (CC) regions identified as the primary areas of wildfire occurrence. Concurrent and antecedent drought conditions were found to have varying effects across regions, with concurrent drought as the dominant predictor for NEC and Southeast China (SEC) regions and antecedent drought as the key predictor for most regions. We also found that the Northwest China (NWC) and CC regions exhibit a gradual decrease in burned area over time, while the NEC region showed a slight increase. Our multiple linear regression models exhibited a notable level of predictive power, as evidenced by the average correlation coefficient of 0.63 between the leave-one-out cross-validation predictions and observed values. In particular, the NEC, NWC, and CC regions demonstrated strong correlations of 0.88, 0.80, and 0.76, respectively. This indicates the potential of our models to contribute to the prediction of future wildfire occurrences and the development of effective wildfire management and prevention strategies. Nevertheless, the intricate relationship among fire, climate change, human activities, and vegetation distribution may limit the generalizability of these findings to other conditions. Consequently, future research should consider a broad range of factors to develop more comprehensive models.

Accelerating decline of wildfires in China in the 21st century

“…The sensitivity of wildfires to pre-existing drought is higher in these areas than in other areas. This may be due to the large geographic areas, limited vegetation cover, and less frequent wildfire occurrences in other regions (Yang et al, 2023). In summary, drought events (negative SPEI) have a significant effect on wildfires, especially in SR.…”

“…Climate plays an important role in influencing the intensity and frequency of wildfires (Yang et al, 2023). Changes in climate, such as increased drought, can create conditions that increase the risk of wildfire (Schoennagel et al, 2017).…”

“…Changes in climate, such as increased drought, can create conditions that increase the risk of wildfire (Schoennagel et al, 2017). Understanding the impact of drought on wildfire dynamics is critical to assessing the potential impact of climate change on wildfire activity in China (Yang et al, 2023). SPEI, which incorporates a wide range of climate metrics such as precipitation, temperature, and evapotranspiration (Vicente-Serrano et al, 2010), can identify the role of temperature The kernel density of number and FRP for five subperiods of wildfires in China.…”

Sentinel-2 Reference Fire Perimeters for the Assessment of Burned Area Products over Latin America and the Caribbean for the Year 2019

“…The increasing availability of satellite data over the last decades has facilitated Earth Observation (EO), with the acquisition of spectral information of the land surface at different spatial, temporal, and spectral resolutions. Utilizing this data, the scientific community has developed diverse types of satellite derived products, such as long-time series coarse-resolution burned area (BA) products [1][2][3][4][5], which are key for many applications, such as fire impact assessment [6], vegetation recovery assessment [7], carbon emissions estimation [8], fire regime and fire dynamics analysis [9], or fire-climate interaction assessment [10], creating a knowledge that can be useful for environmental management.…”