Evaluating Impact of Climate and Land Use change on Wildland Fire and the Amur Tiger
Tatiana Loboda, University of Maryland, ESS Fellow 2004
The spatial patterns and the levels of the Risk of Ignition vary throughout the year. The majority of fire ignitions during years of high and low fire activity occur in April. April map of the Risk of Ignition (right) shows the concentration of fire ignitions along roads and particularly in lowlands in the western part which are primarily occupied by croplands. In contrast forest covered mountainous regions have very low levels of the Risk of Ignition during that time. Download a higher resolution image.
This project is aimed at developing quantitative methodologies for assessment, monitoring, and predicting the impact of wildland fire on a highly endangered species – the Amur tiger. The only known tiger habitat is under pressure from growing demand for natural resources which is further amplified by the rising threat of large and catastrophic fire occurrence.
The remotely sensed data driven Fire Threat Model (FTM) developed within this project provides a basis for spatially explicit quantitative assessment of likelihood of wildland fire occurrence, its impact and recovery potential for a given resource. This model is intended for use by resource managers to assist them in assessing current levels of fire threat to a given resource, projecting the changes in fire threat under the changing climate and land-use and evaluating the efficiency of various management approaches aimed at minimizing the fire impact.
During its first phase, the project focused on evaluating the risk of ignition using MODIS active fire product. Unlike fire behavior, fire ignition is often connected with economic and cultural aspects of human presence as well as climatic conditions. The risk of ignition in the Russian Far East is highly variable in spatial and temporal domains and is strongly linked to anthropogenic activity (transportation routes, settlements and land use). However, there is also an indication that during the largest fire seasons natural sources of ignition also contribute to increased fire occurrence.
In the next phases analyses leading to proper parameterization for the FTM will be undertaken to evaluate potential fire behavior, fire impact on the tiger, and the area’s rehabilitation potential through remotely sensed data. A set of potential scenarios of changes in fire threat associated with climate and land-use change will provide a basis for long-term planning of the Amur tiger habitat protection.
Land Use Change Around Protected Areas in LCLUC Sites: Synthesis of Rates, Consequences for Biodiversity, and Monitoring Strategies
Andrew Hansen (Principal Investigator), Montana State University; Lisa Curran, Yale University ;Emilio Moran, Indiana University; Jack Liu, Michigan State University; Ruth DeFries, University of Maryland; Robin Reid, International Livestock Research Institute; Billie Turner, Clark University
Conceptual model illustrating the effects of land-use change on ecosystem function. (a) Protected areas as part of a larger ecosystem with energy, materials, and/or organisms flowing through the ecosystem. (b) Land-use change reduces effective size of ecosystem. (c) Land-use change alters ecological flows. (d) Land-use change eliminates unique habitats and disrupts sourcesink dynamics. (e) Edge effects from land use negatively influence park
Many nature reserves are loosing species despite being well protected within their boundaries; land-use change in the surrounding landscape may strongly impact reserves. This study examined land use effects on nature reserves by synthesis across six regions: Borneo, Indonesia; Maasailand, East Africa; Santerem, Brazil; Wolong, China; Yellowstone, USA; and Yucatan, Central America.
Objectives were to: quantify rates of change in land use around reserves; examine consequences for biodiversity within the context of specific ecological mechanisms; and draw implications for regional management. Within each of the regions, semi-natural habitats around reserves have been converted to human land uses. Rates vary from 0.2-0.4%/yr for swidden farming in Yucatan, to 9.5%/yr for logging in Borneo.
Ecological mechanisms that connect biodiversity to these land-use changes include habitat size, ecological flows, crucial habitats, and edge effects. For example, the effective size of the East African study area has been reduced by 45% by human activities. Based on the species area relationship, this reduction in habitat area will lead to a loss of 14% of bird and mammal species. While land conversion rates have been less in Yucatan, habitat destruction has been biased towards the productive, old-growth habitat that is crucial habitat to many species. In a portion of East Africa, loss of seasonal habitats contributed to significant population declines of 10 of 13 large mammal species studied. In Greater Yellowstone, low elevation population source habitats for birds have been converted to population sink areas due to rural home development. Consequently subpopulations in Yellowstone National Park are at increased risk of extinction. A major conclusion is that the viability of nature reserves can best be ensured by managing them in the context of the surrounding region.
Fire and Vegetation Dynamics in the Serengeti-Mara Region
Jan Dempewolf, University of Maryland, College Park, ESS Fellow 2003
Left: Relative changes of woody cover density 1998 to 2004 from SPOT4-Vegetation and MODIS time series, significant at p=0.10. Right: Fire return interval 2000-2004.
This project investigates fire and vegetation dynamics in the savanna environment of the Serengeti-Masai Mara region in Tanzania and Kenya and its impact on wildebeest migratory behavior. The most important factors defining ecosystem dynamics of the study region include the migratory wildebeest herds as the key species and dominant grazing animal, the distribution of structural vegetation types, the temporal distribution of vegetation greenness as a proxy for food resources, and fire dynamics.
The objective of this study is to quantify these factors, and determine the interaction between them. Three data sets were developed for this purpose, using a combination of field and satellite data. Spatial and temporal distribution of food resources was derived from a MODIS vegetation indices time series. Structural vegetation types and changes over time were derived from Landsat scenes, and a time series of SPOT4 Vegetation, and MODIS data. Fire dynamics was derived from a MODIS time series. Wildebeest migratory behavior was collected in the field by use of collars equipped with Global Positioning System receivers and simulated in an agent based model.
The vegetation type analysis showed increasing woody cover for the Serengeti National Park (SNP) and Maswa Game Reserve (MGR), while the Masai Mara National Reserve (MMNR) and Mara Group Ranches (MGRs) had stable or decreasing woody cover (Figure 1). Burned areas in the study region have been mapped implementing a newly designed, fully automatic algorithm based on daily MODIS imagery at 250 m resolution. Fire return interval differed considerably within the study area. SNP and adjacent Western Buffer Zones (WBZs) and the MGR showed the shortest average fire return interval with 4.0 years or less and MMNR and the MGRs 12.7 years or more (Figure 2). Further analysis is focused on the relation between fire dynamics and woody cover trends, fire management, and wildebeest movements.
Other LCLUC Ecosystem and Biodiversity Projects
- Radeloff, Volker - University of Wisconsin. Post-USSR land-cover change in Eastern Europe – socioeconomic forcings, effects on biodiversity, and future scenarios
- Liu, Jack - Michigan State University. Multi-scale Impacts of Land-Use/Land-Cover Change on Giant Panda Habitats
