The relative importance of driving factors of wildfire occurrence across climatic gradients in the Inner Mongolia, China
In recent decades, wildfire regimes have been changing in many parts of the world with significant differences among climatic regions. Thus, understanding the relationship between fires and driving factors in different climatic regions is important. We investigated the relative importance of wildfir...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2021-11-01
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| Series: | Ecological Indicators |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X21009146 |
| _version_ | 1818723722386735104 |
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| author | Hongchao Sun Wen J. Wang Zhihua Liu Xianghua Zou Zhengxiang Zhang Hong Ying Yulin Dong Ran Yang |
| author_facet | Hongchao Sun Wen J. Wang Zhihua Liu Xianghua Zou Zhengxiang Zhang Hong Ying Yulin Dong Ran Yang |
| author_sort | Hongchao Sun |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In recent decades, wildfire regimes have been changing in many parts of the world with significant differences among climatic regions. Thus, understanding the relationship between fires and driving factors in different climatic regions is important. We investigated the relative importance of wildfire drivers across climatic gradients using a Bayesian network model during 2001–2015 in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR). Our results showed that regional-scale fire relative probability (FRP) on average increased in the IMAR, which was mainly attributed to increases in annual precipitation. However, changes in FRP and driving factors of wildfire occurrence varied among climatic regions. The FRP decreased at rates of −0.02/decade and −0.001/decade in the humid and semi-humid region, respectively, while increasing at an average rate of 0.05/ decade in the arid region. Temperature was recognized as the most influential driver of wildfires in the humid region, in which the relative importance of all driving factors remained relatively stable over time. In the semi-humid region, wildfires responded primarily to human activities, of which distance to railways was of greatest importance. The relative importance of distance to railways significantly increased over time, while the effects of temperature, humidity and elevation decreased considerably. Fractional vegetation cover (FVC) was the dominant factor controlling the wildfire occurrence in the arid region, in which the relative importance of precipitation significantly increased and the effect of settlements significantly decreased. Our study suggests that because of different driving factors of wildfires across climatic gradients, different fire prevention and management strategies are required. The optimal resource allocation for fire prevention should be adjusted according to the relative importance of wildfire drivers and spatiotemporal patterns of the FRP. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-17T21:15:02Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-4ecfa57801514e9cbc5bc3b3e37cef34 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1470-160X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-17T21:15:02Z |
| publishDate | 2021-11-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Ecological Indicators |
| spelling | doaj.art-4ecfa57801514e9cbc5bc3b3e37cef342022-12-21T21:32:21ZengElsevierEcological Indicators1470-160X2021-11-01131108249The relative importance of driving factors of wildfire occurrence across climatic gradients in the Inner Mongolia, ChinaHongchao Sun0Wen J. Wang1Zhihua Liu2Xianghua Zou3Zhengxiang Zhang4Hong Ying5Yulin Dong6Ran Yang7Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130102, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, ChinaNortheast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130102, China; Corresponding authors.CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, ChinaSchool of Information Science and Technology, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, China; Corresponding authors.School of Geographical Sciences, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, ChinaCollege of Geographical Science, Inner Mongolia Normal University, Hohhot 010022, ChinaNortheast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130102, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, ChinaCollege of Earth Sciences, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, ChinaIn recent decades, wildfire regimes have been changing in many parts of the world with significant differences among climatic regions. Thus, understanding the relationship between fires and driving factors in different climatic regions is important. We investigated the relative importance of wildfire drivers across climatic gradients using a Bayesian network model during 2001–2015 in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR). Our results showed that regional-scale fire relative probability (FRP) on average increased in the IMAR, which was mainly attributed to increases in annual precipitation. However, changes in FRP and driving factors of wildfire occurrence varied among climatic regions. The FRP decreased at rates of −0.02/decade and −0.001/decade in the humid and semi-humid region, respectively, while increasing at an average rate of 0.05/ decade in the arid region. Temperature was recognized as the most influential driver of wildfires in the humid region, in which the relative importance of all driving factors remained relatively stable over time. In the semi-humid region, wildfires responded primarily to human activities, of which distance to railways was of greatest importance. The relative importance of distance to railways significantly increased over time, while the effects of temperature, humidity and elevation decreased considerably. Fractional vegetation cover (FVC) was the dominant factor controlling the wildfire occurrence in the arid region, in which the relative importance of precipitation significantly increased and the effect of settlements significantly decreased. Our study suggests that because of different driving factors of wildfires across climatic gradients, different fire prevention and management strategies are required. The optimal resource allocation for fire prevention should be adjusted according to the relative importance of wildfire drivers and spatiotemporal patterns of the FRP.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X21009146WildfireInner MongoliaBayesian belief networkDriving factorsClimatic regionsSpatiotemporal variations |
| spellingShingle | Hongchao Sun Wen J. Wang Zhihua Liu Xianghua Zou Zhengxiang Zhang Hong Ying Yulin Dong Ran Yang The relative importance of driving factors of wildfire occurrence across climatic gradients in the Inner Mongolia, China Ecological Indicators Wildfire Inner Mongolia Bayesian belief network Driving factors Climatic regions Spatiotemporal variations |
| title | The relative importance of driving factors of wildfire occurrence across climatic gradients in the Inner Mongolia, China |
| title_full | The relative importance of driving factors of wildfire occurrence across climatic gradients in the Inner Mongolia, China |
| title_fullStr | The relative importance of driving factors of wildfire occurrence across climatic gradients in the Inner Mongolia, China |
| title_full_unstemmed | The relative importance of driving factors of wildfire occurrence across climatic gradients in the Inner Mongolia, China |
| title_short | The relative importance of driving factors of wildfire occurrence across climatic gradients in the Inner Mongolia, China |
| title_sort | relative importance of driving factors of wildfire occurrence across climatic gradients in the inner mongolia china |
| topic | Wildfire Inner Mongolia Bayesian belief network Driving factors Climatic regions Spatiotemporal variations |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X21009146 |
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