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Vegetation Fires in South America
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Vegetation Fires in South America

A special issue of Fire (ISSN 2571-6255). This special issue belongs to the section "Fire Science Models, Remote Sensing, and Data".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2023) | Viewed by 56484

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Guilherme Mataveli

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Earth Observation and Geoinformatics Division, National Institute for Space Research, Sao Jose dos Campos 12227-010, SP, Brazil
Interests: remote sensing; fires; biomass burning; fire drivers; LULC changes; spatial analysis; GIS; savannas; Amazon; conservation; protected areas
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Gabriel de Oliveira

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Earth Sciences, University of South Alabama, 5871 USA Drive North, LSCB Room 342, Mobile, AL 36688, USA
Interests: vegetation dynamics; biosphere–atmosphere interactions; water and carbon cycling; remote sensing/GIS; land use and land cover changes (LULCC); Amazonia
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Renata Libonati

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Instituto de Geociências (IGEO), Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro 21941-916, Brazil
Interests: climate; remote sensing; wildfires; climate extremes such as drought and heatwaves
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Liana Anderson

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters (Cemaden), Parque Tecnológico, Rua Dr. Altino Bondensan, 500, São José dos Campos 12.247-016, SP, Brazil
Interests: Amazon; impact; deforestation and forest degradation; wildfires; risk management
Dr. Celso H. L. Silva-Junior

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Departamento de Engenharia Agrícola (DEA), Universidade Estadual do Maranhão—UEMA, São Luís 65055-310, MA, Brazil
Interests: remote sensing; Amazon; tropical forests; environmental change; carbon cycle; forest fires; forest fragmentation; fire emissions; deforestation emissions; land use and land cover changes; tropical deforestation; climate change; drought; Lidar
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Vegetation fires are a major disturbance in the tropics, where South America stands out for having both fire-sensitive (e.g., Amazonia) and fire-prone (e.g., Cerrado) biomes. In addition to this, fire activity in South America is associated with anthropogenic and natural processes, including deforestation and agricultural management, lightning, and favorable meteorological conditions.

An example of the complex association between fires and vegetation in South America are the two recent fire crises that occurred on this continent; while the 2019 Amazonia fire crisis was mostly associated with deforestation, the 2020 Pantanal fire crisis was triggered by an unprecedented drought event. Though vegetation fires in South America have progressively increased in terms of affected area and impacts, the quantification of these fires’ drivers, extension, post-disturbance recovery, monetary losses, emission of trace gases and aerosols, and how to prevent them remains challenging.

We are pleased to invite you to collaborate on the Special Issue entitled “Vegetation Fires in South America”. This Special Issue aims to present original research on the quantification of vegetation fires and their associated impacts in South America, including on multiple scales of analysis (local to continental). In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

Fire detection and burned area estimates; fire drivers, including deforestation and drought events; fire severity and post-fire recovery; Pantanal fires and their impacts on local communities; fire management techniques in the fire-prone biomes of South America; estimates of biomass burning and associated emissions; economic costs of vegetation fires; association between respiratory diseases and smoke pollution; validation of orbital remote sensing-based estimates.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Guilherme Mataveli
Dr. Gabriel de Oliveira
Dr. Renata Libonati
Dr. Liana Anderson
Dr. Celso Henrique Leite Silva Junior
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fire is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • vegetation fires
  • South America
  • remote sensing
  • fire drivers
  • burned area
  • fire severity
  • biomass burning
  • fires and respiratory diseases
  • economic costs of fires
  • fire management techniques

Published Papers (11 papers)

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Editorial

Jump to: Research

5 pages, 891 KiB  
Editorial
Novel Approaches and Techniques for Understanding Vegetation Fires in South America
by Guilherme Mataveli, Gabriel de Oliveira, Renata Libonati, Celso H. L. Silva-Junior and Liana O. Anderson
Fire 2023, 6(7), 275; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/fire6070275 - 14 Jul 2023
Viewed by 980
Abstract
Vegetation fires represent a major disturbance in the tropics, with South America notable for having both fire-sensitive (e [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Vegetation Fires in South America)
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Research

Jump to: Editorial

14 pages, 2638 KiB  
Article
Assessment of Burned Areas during the Pantanal Fire Crisis in 2020 Using Sentinel-2 Images
by Yosio Edemir Shimabukuro, Gabriel de Oliveira, Gabriel Pereira, Egidio Arai, Francielle Cardozo, Andeise Cerqueira Dutra and Guilherme Mataveli
Fire 2023, 6(7), 277; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/fire6070277 - 19 Jul 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 25771
Abstract
The Pantanal biome—a tropical wetland area—has been suffering a prolonged drought that started in 2019 and peaked in 2020. This favored the occurrence of natural disasters and led to the 2020 Pantanal fire crisis. The purpose of this work was to map the [...] Read more.
The Pantanal biome—a tropical wetland area—has been suffering a prolonged drought that started in 2019 and peaked in 2020. This favored the occurrence of natural disasters and led to the 2020 Pantanal fire crisis. The purpose of this work was to map the burned area’s extent during this crisis in the Brazilian portion of the Pantanal biome using Sentinel-2 MSI images. The classification of the burned areas was performed using a machine learning algorithm (Random Forest) in the Google Earth Engine platform. Input variables in the algorithm were the percentiles 10, 25, 50, 75, and 90 of monthly (July to December) mosaics of the shade fraction, NDVI, and NBR images derived from Sentinel-2 MSI images. The results showed an overall accuracy of 95.9% and an estimate of 44,998 km2 burned in the Brazilian portion of the Pantanal, which resulted in severe ecosystem destruction and biodiversity loss in this biome. The burned area estimated in this work was higher than those estimated by the MCD64A1 (35,837 km2), Fire_cci (36,017 km2), GABAM (14,307 km2), and MapBiomas Fogo (23,372 km2) burned area products, which presented lower accuracies. These differences can be explained by the distinct datasets and methods used to obtain those estimates. The proposed approach based on Sentinel-2 images can potentially refine the burned area’s estimation at a regional scale and, consequently, improve the estimate of trace gases and aerosols associated with biomass burning, where global biomass burning inventories are widely known for having biases at a regional scale. Our study brings to light the necessity of developing approaches that aim to improve data and theory about the impacts of fire in regions critically sensitive to climate change, such as the Pantanal, in order to improve Earth systems models that forecast wetland–atmosphere interactions, and the role of these fires on current and future climate change over these regions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Vegetation Fires in South America)
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13 pages, 4546 KiB  
Article
Post-Fire Natural Regeneration Trends in Bolivia: 2001–2021
by Oswaldo Maillard
Fire 2023, 6(1), 18; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/fire6010018 - 07 Jan 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2295
Abstract
In the last 21 years, Bolivia has recorded a series of thousands of wildfires that impacted an area of 24 million hectares, mainly in the departments of Beni and Santa Cruz. In this sense, identifying trends in the increase of natural vegetation after [...] Read more.
In the last 21 years, Bolivia has recorded a series of thousands of wildfires that impacted an area of 24 million hectares, mainly in the departments of Beni and Santa Cruz. In this sense, identifying trends in the increase of natural vegetation after wildfires is a fundamental step in implementing strategies and public policies to ensure ecosystem recovery. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the spatial trends of the increase and decrease in vegetation affected by wildfires for the whole of Bolivia, for the period 2001–2021, using non-parametric tests, through the analysis of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) remote sensing products. The results indicated that 53.6% of the area showed an increasing trend (p < 0.05) and 15.9% of the area showed a decreasing trend (p < 0.05). In terms of land cover type, forests were proportionally represented by 18.1% of the areas that showed an increasing trend (p < 0.05) and 3.0% of the forests showed a decreasing trend (p < 0.05). In contrast, non-forested areas showed an increasing trend of 35.5% and 12.9% showed a decreasing trend (p < 0.05). It can be concluded that there is a continuous regeneration process throughout the country. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Vegetation Fires in South America)
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24 pages, 4751 KiB  
Article
Fire Dynamics in an Emerging Deforestation Frontier in Southwestern Amazonia, Brazil
by Débora Joana Dutra, Liana Oighenstein Anderson, Philip Martin Fearnside, Paulo Maurício Lima de Alencastro Graça, Aurora Miho Yanai, Ricardo Dalagnol, Chantelle Burton, Christopher Jones, Richard Betts and Luiz Eduardo Oliveira e Cruz de Aragão
Fire 2023, 6(1), 2; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/fire6010002 - 21 Dec 2022
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3288
Abstract
Land management and deforestation in tropical regions cause wildfires and forest degradation, leading to a loss of ecosystem services and global climate regulation. The objective of the study was to provide a comprehensive assessment of the spatial extent and patterns of burned areas [...] Read more.
Land management and deforestation in tropical regions cause wildfires and forest degradation, leading to a loss of ecosystem services and global climate regulation. The objective of the study was to provide a comprehensive assessment of the spatial extent and patterns of burned areas in a new deforestation frontier in the Amazonas state. The methodology applied cross-referenced burned area data from 2003 to 2019 with climate, land cover, private properties and Protected Areas information and performed a series of statistical tests. The influence of the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) contributed to a decreasing rainfall anomalies trend and increasing temperature anomalies trend. This process intensified the dry season and increased the extent of annual natural vegetation affected by fires, reaching a peak of 681 km2 in 2019. The results showed that the increased deforestation trend occurred mostly in public lands, mainly after the new forest code, leading to an increase in fires from 66 to 84% in 2019. The methods developed here could identify fire extent, trends, and relationship with land cover change and climate, thus pointing to priority areas for preservation. The conclusion presented that policy decisions affecting the Amazon Forest must include estimates of fire risk and impact under current and projected future climates. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Vegetation Fires in South America)
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21 pages, 8925 KiB  
Article
Analyzing Fire Severity and Post-Fire Vegetation Recovery in the Temperate Andes Using Earth Observation Data
by Melanie Maxwald, Markus Immitzer, Hans Peter Rauch and Federico Preti
Fire 2022, 5(6), 211; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/fire5060211 - 08 Dec 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2706
Abstract
In wildfire areas, earth observation data is used for the development of fire-severity maps or vegetation recovery to select post-fire measures for erosion control and revegetation. Appropriate vegetation indices for post-fire monitoring vary with vegetation type and climate zone. This study aimed to [...] Read more.
In wildfire areas, earth observation data is used for the development of fire-severity maps or vegetation recovery to select post-fire measures for erosion control and revegetation. Appropriate vegetation indices for post-fire monitoring vary with vegetation type and climate zone. This study aimed to select the best vegetation indices for post-fire vegetation monitoring using remote sensing and classification methods for the temperate zone in southern Ecuador, as well as to analyze the vegetation’s development in different fire severity classes after a wildfire in September 2019. Random forest classification models were calculated using the fire severity classes (from the Relativized Burn Ratio—RBR) as a dependent variable and 23 multitemporal vegetation indices from 10 Sentinel-2 scenes as descriptive variables. The best vegetation indices to monitor post-fire vegetation recovery in the temperate Andes were found to be the Leaf Chlorophyll Content Index (LCCI) and the Normalized Difference Red-Edge and SWIR2 (NDRESWIR). In the first post-fire year, the vegetation had already recovered to a great extent due to vegetation types with a short life cycle (seasonal grass-species). Increasing index values correlated strongly with increasing fire severity class (fire severity class vs. median LCCI: 0.9997; fire severity class vs. median NDRESWIR: 0.9874). After one year, the vegetations’ vitality in low severity and moderate high severity appeared to be at pre-fire level. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Vegetation Fires in South America)
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17 pages, 3656 KiB  
Article
The Effect of Forest Fire Events on Air Quality: A Case Study of Northern Colombia
by Sindy Bolaño-Diaz, Yiniva Camargo-Caicedo, Fredy Tovar Bernal and Tomás R. Bolaño-Ortiz
Fire 2022, 5(6), 191; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/fire5060191 - 14 Nov 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3019
Abstract
This work presents an analysis of fire events recorded in Isla Salamanca Natural Park and their impact on the air quality in the district of Barranquilla, with an emphasis on 2020 due to the increase in the number of ha burned by forest [...] Read more.
This work presents an analysis of fire events recorded in Isla Salamanca Natural Park and their impact on the air quality in the district of Barranquilla, with an emphasis on 2020 due to the increase in the number of ha burned by forest fires that year. The analysis was based on the data provided by the environmental authority for 2015–2020. The average number of ha burned in 2020 was 50% (events recorded since 2015), with a total area of fires corresponding to 256.9 ha, which is of concern considering the ecological importance of the park and its proximity to the district of Barranquilla, Colombia. The study evaluated the spatial–temporal distributions of forest fires and their possible direct effects on air quality. For 2020, it was found that the maximum hourly measurements of the Tres Ave Marias station for particulate matter less than 2.5 (135.013 µg/m3) corresponded to the recorded event that occurred in June 2020, whereas those of the Móvil station for PM10 (263.98 µg/m3) and PM2.5 (278.7 µg/m3) corresponded to the events of 28 June 2020, and 9 August 2020. These concentrations were higher than the standard values of the average maximum limits for 24 h established in the current Colombian regulations, and both events coincided with fire events reported by the environmental authorities, where a total of 249 ha of Isla Salamanca Natural Park were burned. These things considered, it was evident that the Policía station had the highest concentrations of pollutants on average. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Vegetation Fires in South America)
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20 pages, 939 KiB  
Article
Measuring Cross-Correlations, Contagion and Long-Range Behavior between Fires in Brazil and Some Time Series Related to Its Economic Growth
by Claudio Marcio Cassela Inacio, Jr., Vinicius V. Nogueira, António M. Lopes and Sergio Adriani David
Fire 2022, 5(5), 148; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/fire5050148 - 24 Sep 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1369
Abstract
Fires bring up the debate about their impact on Brazil’s economic growth. Some processing tools such as cointegration and, especially, the correlation have been applied for identifying possible transmission or contagion mechanisms between distinct time series. This paper adopts the detrended cross-correlation analysis [...] Read more.
Fires bring up the debate about their impact on Brazil’s economic growth. Some processing tools such as cointegration and, especially, the correlation have been applied for identifying possible transmission or contagion mechanisms between distinct time series. This paper adopts the detrended cross-correlation analysis (DCCA) and rolling window approach to investigate the dynamic coupling between fires and the evolution of some key variables related to Brazil’s economic growth (e.g., agricultural planted area, ethanol production, rainfall in the midwest region and gross domestic product) covering two periods, namely from January 2012 to August 2016 (before the Brazilian presidential impeachment occurred in 2016) and from September 2016 to April 2021, covering the post-impeachment scenario, with the new government policies in the environmental sector. The results show a positive cross-correlation between the level of fires versus planted area of all cereals, leguminous and oleaginous in Brazil (mostly Soybean and Corn) and versus ethanol production (a renewable energy generation). It is also possible to verify some impact level on the Brazilian gross domestic product. Furthermore, we observed quantitatively, by means of the adopted methods that fires in Brazil have the potential to damage economic growth and some activities addressed in this study can also harm the environment in both mid and long-term. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Vegetation Fires in South America)
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12 pages, 2976 KiB  
Article
Spatio-Temporal Characterization of Fire Using MODIS Data (2000–2020) in Colombia
by Sindy Bolaño-Díaz, Yiniva Camargo-Caicedo, Tionhonkélé D. Soro, Aya Brigitte N’Dri and Tomás R. Bolaño-Ortiz
Fire 2022, 5(5), 134; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/fire5050134 - 05 Sep 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2654
Abstract
Fire is a process of disturbance of natural ecosystems that can be used for land management and soil preparation for agricultural purposes, but can also drastically affect biodiversity and the distribution and abundance of species by changing land use and altering the microclimate. [...] Read more.
Fire is a process of disturbance of natural ecosystems that can be used for land management and soil preparation for agricultural purposes, but can also drastically affect biodiversity and the distribution and abundance of species by changing land use and altering the microclimate. The analysis of data on thermal anomalies has become a valuable tool for the study of places with low monitoring of the occurrence of fires. In this study, information from the MODIS sensor was used to analyze the spatio-temporal distribution of fires in the five natural regions of Colombia (Caribbean, Andean, Pacific, Orinoquia, and Amazon) in the period of 2000–2020. Nevertheless, MODIS fire hotspots present some difficulties in estimating the magnitude of fire activity, due the relations between active fires and burned areas, which are not constant in space and time. The method used in this work consisted to performance an inter-annual and intra-annual analysis of thermal anomalies data and identifying the incidence of temperature in the occurrence of fires. The fire density (defined as the number of fires per unit area) and the fire trends over the study period were also analyzed. Inter-annual fire peaks were recorded in 2004 (8.21%) and 2007 (8.04%), and three main fire hotspots were identified in the Orinoquia, Andean, and Caribbean regions. Moreover, 87% of fire peaks were observed in the dry season (December–March). On the other hand, the highest incidence of thermal anomalies occurred in the Orinoquia region (83409 ± 185 fires), and the highest incidence of fires per unit area was recorded in the Andean region (0.162 ± 0.086 fires-km2-year). Fire activities varied strongly according to region and year over the study period. Significant correlations were observed between temperature and fire density in the Andean (Rho = 0.7506), Pacific (Rho = 0.7364), and Caribbean (Rho = 0.5571) regions. Thus, temperature seem to be a driver of fire density in these regions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Vegetation Fires in South America)
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18 pages, 6729 KiB  
Article
Burn Severity Assessment Using Sentinel-1 SAR in the Southeast Peruvian Amazon, a Case Study of Madre de Dios
by Gabriel Alarcon-Aguirre, Reynaldo Fabrizzio Miranda Fidhel, Dalmiro Ramos Enciso, Rembrandt Canahuire-Robles, Liset Rodriguez-Achata and Jorge Garate-Quispe
Fire 2022, 5(4), 94; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/fire5040094 - 08 Jul 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3305
Abstract
Fire is one of the significant drivers of vegetation loss and threat to Amazonian landscapes. It is estimated that fires cause about 30% of deforested areas, so the severity level is an important factor in determining the rate of vegetation recovery. Therefore, the [...] Read more.
Fire is one of the significant drivers of vegetation loss and threat to Amazonian landscapes. It is estimated that fires cause about 30% of deforested areas, so the severity level is an important factor in determining the rate of vegetation recovery. Therefore, the application of remote sensing to detect fires and their severity is fundamental. Radar imagery has an advantage over optical imagery because radar can penetrate clouds, smoke, and rain and can see at night. This research presents algorithms for mapping the severity level of burns based on change detection from Sentinel-1 backscatter data in the southeastern Peruvian Amazon. Absolute, relative, and Radar Forest Degradation Index (RDFI) predictors were used through singular polarization length (dB) patterns (Vertical, Vertical-VV and Horizontal, Horizontal-HH) of vegetation and burned areas. The Composite Burn Index (CBI) determined the algorithms’ accuracy. The burn severity ratios used were estimated to be approximately 40% at the high level, 43% at the moderate level, and 17% at the low level. The validation dataset covers 384 locations representing the main areas affected by fires, showing the absolute and relative predictors of cross-polarization (k = 0.734) and RDFI (k = 0.799) as the most concordant in determining burn severity. Overall, the research determines that Sentinel-1 cross-polarized (VH) data has adequate accuracy for detecting and quantifying burns. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Vegetation Fires in South America)
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17 pages, 3649 KiB  
Article
Forest Fragmentation and Fires in the Eastern Brazilian Amazon–Maranhão State, Brazil
by Celso H. L. Silva-Junior, Arisson T. M. Buna, Denilson S. Bezerra, Ozeas S. Costa, Jr., Adriano L. Santos, Lidielze O. D. Basson, André L. S. Santos, Swanni T. Alvarado, Catherine T. Almeida, Ana T. G. Freire, Guillaume X. Rousseau, Danielle Celentano, Fabricio B. Silva, Maria S. S. Pinheiro, Silvana Amaral, Milton Kampel, Laura B. Vedovato, Liana O. Anderson and Luiz E. O. C. Aragão
Fire 2022, 5(3), 77; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/fire5030077 - 05 Jun 2022
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 5459
Abstract
Tropical forests provide essential environmental services to human well-being. In the world, Brazil has the largest continuous area of these forests. However, in the state of Maranhão, in the eastern Amazon, only 24% of the original forest cover remains. We integrated and analyzed [...] Read more.
Tropical forests provide essential environmental services to human well-being. In the world, Brazil has the largest continuous area of these forests. However, in the state of Maranhão, in the eastern Amazon, only 24% of the original forest cover remains. We integrated and analyzed active fires, burned area, land use and land cover, rainfall, and surface temperature datasets to understand forest fragmentation and forest fire dynamics from a remote sensing approach. We found that forest cover in the Maranhão Amazon region had a net reduction of 31,302 km2 between 1985 and 2017, with 63% of losses occurring in forest core areas. Forest edges extent was reduced by 38%, while the size of isolated forest patches increased by 239%. Forest fires impacted, on average, around 1031 ± 695 km2 year−1 of forest edges between 2003 and 2017, the equivalent of 60% of the total burned forest in this period. Our results demonstrated that forest fragmentation is an important factor controlling temporal and spatial variability of forest fires in the eastern Amazon region. Thus, both directly and indirectly, forest fragmentation can compromise biodiversity and carbon stocks in this Amazon region. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Vegetation Fires in South America)
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18 pages, 2109 KiB  
Article
Effects of the Severity of Wildfires on Some Physical-Chemical Soil Properties in a Humid Montane Scrublands Ecosystem in Southern Ecuador
by Vinicio Carrión-Paladines, María Belén Hinojosa, Leticia Jiménez Álvarez, Fabián Reyes-Bueno, Liliana Correa Quezada and Roberto García-Ruiz
Fire 2022, 5(3), 66; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/fire5030066 - 13 May 2022
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 3660
Abstract
Humid montane scrublands (HMs) represent one of the least studied ecosystems in Ecuador, which in the last decade have been seriously threatened by the increase in wildfires. Our main objective was to evaluate the effects of wildfire severity on physicochemical soil properties in [...] Read more.
Humid montane scrublands (HMs) represent one of the least studied ecosystems in Ecuador, which in the last decade have been seriously threatened by the increase in wildfires. Our main objective was to evaluate the effects of wildfire severity on physicochemical soil properties in the HMs of southern Ecuador. For this purpose, fire severity was measured using the Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) and the difference between pre-fire and post-fire (NBR Pre-fire-NBR Post-fire) over three contrasted periods (years 2019, 2017, and 2015) was determined. Likewise, 72 soil samples from burned HMs and 72 soil samples from unburned HMs were collected at a depth of 0 to 10 cm, and some physical (bulk density and texture) and biochemical (pH, soil organic matter, and total nutrients) soil properties were analyzed and statistically processed by one-way ANOVA and principal component analysis (PCA). Results indicate that burned HMs showed mixed-severity burning patterns and that in the most recent wildfires that are of high severity, SOM, N, P, Cu, and Zn contents decreased drastically (PCA: component 1); in addition, there was an increase in soil compaction (PCA: component 2). However, in older wildfires, total SOM, N, P, K, and soil pH content increases with time compared even to HMs that never burned (p-value < 0.05). These results can help decision makers in the design of policies, regulations, and proposals for the environmental restoration of HMs in southern Ecuador affected by wildfires. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Vegetation Fires in South America)
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