Reliability of cross-regional applications of global fire danger models: a Peruvian case study

Fire Ecology

卷:18

Original Research

Vannia Aliaga-Nestares¹  Diego Rodriguez-Zimmermann¹  Blanca Ponce²  Andrea Markos²  William Jolly³  Harry Podschwit⁴  Ernesto Alvarado⁵  Satyam Verma⁶ 

[1] Servicio Nacional de Meteorología e Hidrología (SENAMHI) del Perú, Jr. Cahuide 785, Lima, Peru;

[2] United States Forest Service, International Programs, Thomas Circle NW, 20005, Washington D.C., USA;

[3] United States Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory, W. Broadway Street, 59808, Missoula, USA;

[4] United States Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory, W. Broadway Street, 59808, Missoula, USA;Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, Bethel Valley Road, 37830, Oak Ridge, USA;

[5] University of Washington, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, West Stevens Way NE, 98195, Seattle, USA;

[6] University of Washington, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, West Stevens Way NE, 98195, Seattle, USA;Department of Environmental Science, School of Engineering and Sciences, SRM University-AP, 522240, Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh, India;

关键词: Fire weather index;    Energy release component;    Burning index;    KBDI;    Fire potential;    Andes;    Peru;    Reference class problem;    Ecological fallacy;    Rainforest;    Power analysis;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s42408-022-00150-7

 received in 2022-02-07, accepted in 2022-10-07,  发布年份 2022

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundFire danger indexes (FDIs) are used as proxies for fire potential and are often developed for specific locations. For practical purposes, the extrapolation of the underlying calculations into novel locations is common, but it is generally uncertain if the relationships between FDIs and fire potential observed in the environment in which the index was developed are equally relevant in others. For example, although a topographically, ecologically, and climatologically complex country, f ire danger forecasts in Peru use a standard set of nationwide thresholds applied to the Fire Weather Index. In this study, we validate the underlying assumption that weather-fire relationships are spatially uniform within Peru by (1) making cross-regional comparisons of the statistical distributions of four FDIs—Burning Index, Energy Release Component, Fire Weather Index, and Keetch-Byram Drought Index, and (2) making cross-regional comparisons of the expected daily MODIS hotspot count percentiles conditioned on FDI values.ResultsSignificant regional differences in the distributions of daily FDI values were observed in every pair of regions within Peru, and with the exception of a pair of regions within the Amazon, little data (<90\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$<90$$\end{document} days) were necessary to detect these differences. After controlling for FDI values and seasonal and annual effects with regressions, differences in predicted hotspot percentiles were common, differing by as much as 47 percentage points. Across the pairs of regions, the magnitude of these differences tended to decrease as climatic similarity increased, but some counterexamples were also apparent.ConclusionsThe noticeable differences in the distributions of daily FDI values suggest that a standard set of breakpoints may produce unreliable inferences regarding fire potential. We also find that even if the climatic conditions were similar across Peru, the same FDI values in two locations can produce substantially differing predictions of wildfire activity. This suggests that other factors besides FDI values can strongly mediate wildfire activity and that better fire potential predictions could be produced if these factors are accounted for.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2022

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