IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecomod/v221y2010i9p1301-1309.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Will climate change overwhelm fire management capacity?

Author

Listed:
  • Podur, Justin
  • Wotton, Michael

Abstract

Using anomalies calculated from General Circulation Model (GCM) climate predictions we developed scenarios of future fire weather, fuel moisture and fire occurrence and used these as the inputs to a fire growth and suppression simulation model for the province of Ontario, Canada. The goal of this study was to combine GCM predictions with the fire growth and suppression model to examine potential changes in area burned in Ontario due to climate change, while accounting for the large fire suppression activities of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR). Results indicate a doubling of area burned in the Intensive and Measured fire management zones of Ontario by the decade of 2040 and an eightfold increase in area burned by the end of the 21st century in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (IPCC SRES) A2 scenario; smaller increases were found for the A1b and B1 scenarios. These changes are driven by increased fire weather conducive to large fire growth, and increases in the number of fires escaping initial attack: for the Canadian GCM's business-as-usual (A2) scenario, escaped fire frequency increased by 34% by 2040 and 92% by the end of the 21st century. Incorporating more detail on large fire growth than previous studies, our model predicts higher area burned under climate change than do these previous studies, as large numbers of high-intensity fires overwhelm suppression capacity.

Suggested Citation

  • Podur, Justin & Wotton, Michael, 2010. "Will climate change overwhelm fire management capacity?," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 221(9), pages 1301-1309.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:221:y:2010:i:9:p:1301-1309
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2010.01.013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304380010000529
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2010.01.013?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. White, Thomas & Luckai, Nancy & Larocque, Guy R. & Kurz, Werner A. & Smyth, Carolyn, 2008. "A practical approach for assessing the sensitivity of the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector (CBM-CFS3)," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 219(3), pages 373-382.
    2. Zhou, Xiaolu & Peng, Changhui & Dang, Qing-Lai & Sun, Jianfeng & Wu, Haibin & Hua, Dong, 2008. "Simulating carbon exchange in Canadian Boreal forests," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 219(3), pages 287-299.
    3. D. L. Martell & R. J. Drysdale & G. E. Doan & D. Boychuk, 1984. "An Evaluation of Forest Fire Initial Attack Resources," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 14(5), pages 20-32, October.
    4. Sun, Jianfeng & Peng, Changhui & McCaughey, Harry & Zhou, Xiaolu & Thomas, Valerie & Berninger, Frank & St-Onge, Benoît. & Hua, Dong, 2008. "Simulating carbon exchange of Canadian boreal forests," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 219(3), pages 276-286.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Emily S Hope & Daniel W McKenney & John H Pedlar & Brian J Stocks & Sylvie Gauthier, 2016. "Wildfire Suppression Costs for Canada under a Changing Climate," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(8), pages 1-18, August.
    2. M. Flannigan & B. Wotton & G. Marshall & W. de Groot & J. Johnston & N. Jurko & A. Cantin, 2016. "Fuel moisture sensitivity to temperature and precipitation: climate change implications," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 134(1), pages 59-71, January.
    3. M. D. Flannigan & B. M. Wotton & G. A. Marshall & W. J. de Groot & J. Johnston & N. Jurko & A. S. Cantin, 2016. "Fuel moisture sensitivity to temperature and precipitation: climate change implications," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 134(1), pages 59-71, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shaw, C.H. & Hilger, A.B. & Metsaranta, J. & Kurz, W.A. & Russo, G. & Eichel, F. & Stinson, G. & Smyth, C. & Filiatrault, M., 2014. "Evaluation of simulated estimates of forest ecosystem carbon stocks using ground plot data from Canada's National Forest Inventory," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 272(C), pages 323-347.
    2. Wang, Z. & Grant, R.F. & Arain, M.A. & Bernier, P.Y. & Chen, B. & Chen, J.M. & Govind, A. & Guindon, L. & Kurz, W.A. & Peng, C. & Price, D.T. & Stinson, G. & Sun, J. & Trofymowe, J.A. & Yeluripati, J., 2013. "Incorporating weather sensitivity in inventory-based estimates of boreal forest productivity: A meta-analysis of process model results," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 260(C), pages 25-35.
    3. Wen, Xuding & Zhao, Zhonghui & Deng, Xiangwen & Xiang, Wenhua & Tian, Dalun & Yan, Wende & Zhou, Xiaolu & Peng, Changhui, 2014. "Applying an artificial neural network to simulate and predict Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata) plantation carbon flux in subtropical China," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 294(C), pages 19-26.
    4. Wang, Weifeng & Peng, Changhui & Zhang, S.Y. & Zhou, Xiaolu & Larocque, Guy R. & Kneeshaw, Daniel D. & Lei, Xiangdong, 2011. "Development of TRIPLEX-Management model for simulating the response of forest growth to pre-commercial thinning," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 222(14), pages 2249-2261.
    5. Liu, Qiuyu & Peng, Changhui & Schneider, Robert & Cyr, Dominic & Liu, Zelin & Zhou, Xiaolu & Kneeshaw, Daniel, 2021. "TRIPLEX-Mortality model for simulating drought-induced tree mortality in boreal forests: Model development and evaluation," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 455(C).
    6. Zhang, Minxia & Chen, Shulin & Jiang, Hong & Peng, Changhui & Zhang, Jinmeng & Zhou, Guomo, 2020. "The impact of intensive management on net ecosystem productivity and net primary productivity of a Lei bamboo forest," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 435(C).
    7. Metsaranta, J.M. & Kurz, W.A., 2012. "Inter-annual variability of ecosystem production in boreal jack pine forests (1975–2004) estimated from tree-ring data using CBM-CFS3," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 224(1), pages 111-123.
    8. Pommerening, Arne & LeMay, Valerie & Stoyan, Dietrich, 2011. "Model-based analysis of the influence of ecological processes on forest point pattern formation—A case study," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 222(3), pages 666-678.
    9. Martell, David L. & Gunn, Eldon A. & Weintraub, Andres, 1998. "Forest management challenges for operational researchers," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 1-17, January.
    10. Pilli, Roberto & Grassi, Giacomo & Kurz, Werner A. & Smyth, Carolyn E. & Blujdea, Viorel, 2013. "Application of the CBM-CFS3 model to estimate Italy's forest carbon budget, 1995–2020," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 266(C), pages 144-171.
    11. Smyth, C.E. & Kurz, W.A. & Trofymow, J.A., 2011. "Including the effects of water stress on decomposition in the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector CBM-CFS3," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 222(5), pages 1080-1091.
    12. Wang, Yonghe & Flannigan, Mike & Anderson, Kerry, 2010. "Correlations between forest fires in British Columbia, Canada, and sea surface temperature of the Pacific Ocean," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 221(1), pages 122-129.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:221:y:2010:i:9:p:1301-1309. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/ecological-modelling .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.