Coupling heat wave and wildfire occurrence across multiple ecoregions within a Eurasia longitudinal gradient

Elia Mario; Lafortezza Raffaele; Cappelluti Onofrio; Costa-Saura Josè Maria; Bacciu Valentina; Giannico Vincenzo; Changliang Shao; Sanesi Giovanni

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169269

Coupling heat wave and wildfire occurrence across multiple ecoregions within a Eurasia longitudinal gradient

Sci Total Environ. 2024 Feb 20:912:169269. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169269. Epub 2023 Dec 11.

Authors

Elia Mario¹, Lafortezza Raffaele², Cappelluti Onofrio¹, Costa-Saura Josè Maria³, Bacciu Valentina⁴, Giannico Vincenzo¹, Changliang Shao⁵, Sanesi Giovanni¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Soil, Plant and Food Sciences, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Via Amendola 165/A, 70126 Bari, Italy.
² Department of Soil, Plant and Food Sciences, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Via Amendola 165/A, 70126 Bari, Italy; Research Centre of Urban Forestry, Key Laboratory for Silviculture and Forest Ecosystem of State Forestry and Grassland Administration, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China. Electronic address: raffaele.lafortezza@uniba.it.
³ Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Sassari, Sassari 07100, Italy; Impacts on Agriculture, Forestry and Ecosystem Services Division, Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Changes, Viale Italia, Sassari 07100, Italy; National Biodiversity Future Center, Palazzo Steri, Piazza Marina 61, Palermo, 90133, Italy.
⁴ National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Bioeconomy, Sassari 07100, Italy.
⁵ National Hulunber Grassland Ecosystem Observation and Research Station & Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 10008, China.

PMID: 38086479
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169269

Abstract

Understanding the relationship between heat wave occurrence and wildfire spread represents a key priority in global change studies due to the significant threats posed on natural ecosystems and society. Previous studies have not explored the spatial and temporal mechanism underlying the relationship between heat waves and wildfires occurrence, especially over large geographical regions. This study seeks to investigate such a relationship with a focus on 37 ecoregions within a Eurasia longitudinal gradient. The analysis is based on the wildfire dataset provided by the GlobFire Final Fire Event Detection and the meteorological dataset ERA5-land from Copernicus Climate service. In both cases we focused on the 2001-2019 timeframe. By means of a 12 km square grid, three wildfire metrics, i.e., density, seasonality, and severity of wildfires, were computed as proxy of fire regime. Heat waves were also characterized in terms of periods, duration, and intensity for the same period. Statistical tests were performed to evaluate the different patterns of heat wave and wildfire occurrence in the 37 ecoregions within the study area. By using Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) we modeled the spatial varying relationships between heat wave characteristics and wildfire metrics. As expected, our results suggest that the 37 ecoregions identified within the Eurasia longitudinal gradient differ in terms of fire regimes. However, the occurrence of heat waves did not show significant differences among ecoregions, but a more evident variability in terms of relationship between fire regime metrics and heat waves within the study area. The outcome of the GWR analysis allowed us to identify the spatial locations (i.e., hotspot areas) where the relationship between heat waves and wildfires is positive and significant. Hence, in hotspots the presence of heat waves can be seen as a driver of wildfire occurrence in forest and steppe ecosystems. The findings from this study could contribute to a more comprehensive assessment of wildfire patterns in this geographical region, thus supporting cross-regional prevention strategies for disaster risk mitigation.

Keywords: Ecoregions; Euroasia; Fire regime; Heat waves; Risk mitigation; Wildfires.