Citation

Bradstock RA, Penman T, Boer M, Price O, Clarke HG. Glob. Chang. Biol. 2014; 20(5): 1412-1428.

Affiliation

Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires, Institute for Conservation Biology and Management, University of Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/gcb.12449

PMID

24151212

Abstract

The response of fire to climate change may vary across fuel types characteristic of differing vegetation types (i.e. litter versus grass). Models of fire under climatic change capture these differing potential responses to varying degrees. Across south-eastern Australia, an elevation in the severity of weather conditions conducive to fire has been measured in recent decades. We examined trends in area burned (1975 to 2009) to determine if a corresponding increase in fire had occurred across the diverse range of ecosystems found in this part of the continent. We predicted that an increase in fire, due to climatic warming and drying, was more likely to have occurred in moist, temperate forests near the coast than in arid and semi-arid woodlands of the interior, due to inherent contrasts in the respective dominant fuel types (woody litter versus herbaceous fuels). Significant warming (i.e. increased temperature and number of hot days) and drying (i.e. negative precipitation anomaly, number of days with low humidity) occurred across most of the 32 Bioregions examined. The results were mostly consistent with predictions, with an increase in area burned in seven out of eight forest Bioregions, whereas area burned either declined (two) or did not change significantly (nine) in drier woodland Bioregions. In twelve woodland Bioregions, data were insufficient for analysis of temporal trends in fire. Increases in fire attributable mostly to warming or drying were confined to three Bioregions. In the remainder, such increases were mostly unrelated to warming or drying trends and therefore may be due to other climate effects not explored (e.g. lightning ignitions) or possible anthropogenic influences. Projections of future fire must therefore not only account for responses of different fuel systems to climatic change but the wider range of ecological and human effects on interactions between fire and vegetation. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Language: en