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Anthropogenic and Lightning Fire Incidence and Burned Area in Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Jasper Dijkstra

    (Faculty of Science, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, de Boelelaan 1085, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

  • Tracy Durrant

    (Engineering Ingegneria Informatica S.p.A., Piazzale dell’Agricoltura, 24, 00144 Roma, Italy)

  • Jesús San-Miguel-Ayanz

    (Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Via Enrico Fermi, 2749, 21027 Ispra, Italy)

  • Sander Veraverbeke

    (Faculty of Science, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, de Boelelaan 1085, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

Abstract

Fires can have an anthropogenic or natural origin. The most frequent natural fire cause is lightning. Since anthropogenic and lightning fires have different climatic and socio-economic drivers, it is important to distinguish between these different fire causes. We developed random forest models that predict the fraction of anthropogenic and lightning fire incidences, and their burned area, at the level of the Nomenclature des Unités Territoriales Statistiques level 3 (NUTS3) for Europe. The models were calibrated using the centered log-ratio of fire incidence and burned area reference data from the European Forest Fire Information System. After a correlation analysis, the population density, fractional human land impact, elevation and burned area coefficient of variation—a measure of interannual variability in burned area—were selected as predictor variables in the models. After parameter tuning and running the models with several train-validate compositions, we found that the vast majority of fires and burned area in Europe has an anthropogenic cause, while lightning plays a significant role in the remote northern regions of Scandinavia. Combining our results with burned area data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, we estimated that 96.5 ± 0.9% of the burned area in Europe has an anthropogenic cause. Our spatially explicit fire cause attribution model demonstrates the spatial variability between anthropogenic and lightning fires and their burned area over Europe and could be used to improve predictive fire models by accounting for fire cause.

Suggested Citation

  • Jasper Dijkstra & Tracy Durrant & Jesús San-Miguel-Ayanz & Sander Veraverbeke, 2022. "Anthropogenic and Lightning Fire Incidence and Burned Area in Europe," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-19, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:11:y:2022:i:5:p:651-:d:804293
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sander Veraverbeke & Brendan M. Rogers & Mike L. Goulden & Randi R. Jandt & Charles E. Miller & Elizabeth B. Wiggins & James T. Randerson, 2017. "Lightning as a major driver of recent large fire years in North American boreal forests," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 7(7), pages 529-534, July.
    2. San-Miguel-Ayanz, Jesús & Schulte, Ernst & Schmuck, Guido & Camia, Andrea, 2013. "The European Forest Fire Information System in the context of environmental policies of the European Union," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 19-25.
    3. Yang Chen & David M. Romps & Jacob T. Seeley & Sander Veraverbeke & William J. Riley & Zelalem A. Mekonnen & James T. Randerson, 2021. "Future increases in Arctic lightning and fire risk for permafrost carbon," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 11(5), pages 404-410, May.
    4. Jiajia Chen & Xiaoqin Zhang & Shengjia Li, 2017. "Multiple linear regression with compositional response and covariates," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(12), pages 2270-2285, September.
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