A human-driven decline in global burned area

Andela, N. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8241-6143, Morton, D. C., Giglio, L., Chen, Y., van der Werf, G. R., Kasibhatla, P. S., DeFries, R. S., Collatz, G. J., Hantson, S., Kloster, S., Bachelet, D., Forrest, M., Lasslop, G., Li, F., Mangeon, S., Melton, J. R., Yue, C. and Randerson, J. T. 2017. A human-driven decline in global burned area. Science 356 (6345) , pp. 1356-1362. 10.1126/science.aal4108

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

Fire is an essential Earth system process that alters ecosystem and atmospheric composition. Here we assessed long-term fire trends using multiple satellite data sets. We found that global burned area declined by 24.3 ± 8.8% over the past 18 years. The estimated decrease in burned area remained robust after adjusting for precipitation variability and was largest in savannas. Agricultural expansion and intensification were primary drivers of declining fire activity. Fewer and smaller fires reduced aerosol concentrations, modified vegetation structure, and increased the magnitude of the terrestrial carbon sink. Fire models were unable to reproduce the pattern and magnitude of observed declines, suggesting that they may overestimate fire emissions in future projections. Using economic and demographic variables, we developed a conceptual model for predicting fire in human-dominated landscapes.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Earth and Environmental Sciences
Publisher:	American Association for the Advancement of Science
ISSN:	0036-8075
Date of Acceptance:	2 June 2017
Last Modified:	06 Jul 2023 02:02
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/133584

Citation Data

Cited 528 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item