Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Analisa os fatores ambientais que contribuem para a ocorrência de incêndios florestais nas localidades de Apiaú e Ribeiro Campos em Mucajaí-RR com o emprego de técnicas de processamento de imagens digitais e análise espacial através da técnica Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) / This study has forest analyzes the environment factors which contribute to the occurrence of the environment fires in Apiaú and Ribeiro Campos localities in Mucajaí - RR with the employment of image processing techniques and space analyses through the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Incêndios florestais emitem gases do efeito estufa que contribuem para o aquecimento global e para as mudanças climáticas. A base dos principais gases que provocam o efeito estufa é o carbono, objeto deste estudo e presente na biomassa florestal. O Brasil possui a maior floresta tropical do mundo, a Amazônia. Contudo, a quantificação das emissões de gases do efeito estufa por incêndios florestais são difíceis de mensurar, havendo poucos estudos para a região. Roraima é um dos estados amazônicos que possui um dos melhores históricos de incêndios florestais, o que possibilita a sua quantificação. O objetivo deste estudo foi o de entender a dinâmica espaço-temporal dos incêndios florestais ocorridos em Roraima no período de 2000-2010. Para tanto, o trabalho verificou (i) a área impactada pelos incêndios neste período; (ii) a relação entre área impactada e os eventos climáticos (El Niño, La Niña e anos normais); (iii) os tipos florestais mais afetadas pelos fogos e (iv) o destino do carbono afetado por incêndios florestais. Foram utilizados mosaicos LANDSAT TM/ETM+ compostos por oito cenas em cada ano amostrado. A data das cenas foi preferencialmente escolhida entre abril e maio, meses que correspondem ao final do período seco em Roraima. Cada mosaico foi interpretado visualmente em uma escala de trabalho de 1:50.000. Foi adotado um protocolo de inspeção ao longo das principais estradas (BR 174, BR 210, BR 401) para verificar os desmatamentos (i) nas áreas de colonização, e (ii) em toda a borda das savanas em contato com a floresta. As áreas incendiadas em um dado ano foram manualmente poligonadas após um sistema de checagem entre os anos anterior e posterior para evitar a construção de polígonos equivocados. Para a verificação dos tipos florestais impactados, utilizou-se o mapa de vegetação do Programa de Conservação e Utilização Sustentável da Diversidade Biológica Brasileira (PROBio). Para calcular o destino do carbono afetado foram utilizados estudos sobre estoque de carbono e biomassa dos tipos florestais presentes em Roraima. / Forest fires act as source of greenhouse gas emissions contributing to global warming and climate change. Carbon is the base of the main gases causing greenhouse effect, and it is present in forest biomass. Brazil has the largest tropical forest in the world, the Amazon. However, the quantification of greenhouse gas emissions by forest fires is difficult to measure, and there are few studies in Amazon region. Roraima is one of the Amazonian States that has a known history of fires, which enables their quantification. The objective of this study was to understand the spatio-temporal dynamics of carbon affected by forest fires occurred in Roraima among 2000-2010. In this sense, the work verified (i) the area impacted by fires in the period; (ii) the relationship between the area impacted and climatic events (El Niño, La Niña and normal years); (iii) the forest types more affected by fires and (iv) the fate of carbon affected by fires. Were used mosaics of LANDSAT TM/ETM+ composed of eight scenes each one by sampled year. The date of the scenes was preferably chosen between April and May, months that correspond to the end of the dry season in Roraima. Each mosaic was surveyed visually on a work scale of 1:50,000. It was adopted an inspection protocol along the main federal highways (BR 174, BR 210 and BR 401) to verify deforestation (i) in colonization areas, and (ii) on the border of savannas in contact with the forest. The areas burned in a given year were manually drawn after a system of checkpoints between the previous and subsequent year of construction to avoid build wrong polygon. To verification of forest types impacted, was used the vegetation map of the Programme for Conservation and Sustainable Use of Brazilian Biological Diversity, (PROBio). To calculate the fate of carbon affected were used studies on carbon stock and biomass of forest types in Roraima.

How great potential effect does the Black carbon emitted from the boreal forest fire region of Alaska have on the retreating glaciers of the St. Elias Mountains? In this study climate and forest fire history data of Alaska was run in the HYSPLIT wind trajectory model to generate trajectories originated from large occurring fires in Alaska from 2005 to 2014. Results show a small percentage of trajectories passing the St. Elias Mountains and an expected pattern of a correlation between passing trajectories and density of amount forest fires. Interdisciplinary climate research is indicating an increase in global temperatures with consequences such as an upswing of forest fires in the Northern Hemisphere. Inner Alaska is fire prone due to a combination of prevailing droughts during the summer season and frequent lightning ignition as a result from homogeneous vegetation and topography. Downwind from Alaska’s forest fire region is the ice field of the St. Elias Mountains, these glaciers are one of the fastest retreating due to increasing global temperatures and possible deposition of soot from Alaskan forest fires. Forest fire emits black carbon, which when deposited on snow or ice surfaces will decrease the albedo and accelerate the melting rate. Previous studies on ice cores from the St. Elias have investigated traces of combustion products from biomass burning. This indicates a possible record of historic forest fires in ice cores. The small percentage of passing trajectories in this study suggests that most large forest fires in Alaska might not be registered in the St. Elias ice cores.

This study provides an analysis of watershed response to climate change and forest fire impacts, to better understand the hydrologic budget and inform water management decisions for present and future needs. The study site is 2,365 km2, located in the upper Umatilla River Basin (URB) in northeastern Oregon. The Precipitation Runoff Modeling System, a distributed-parameter, physical-process watershed model, was used in this study. Model calibration yielded a Nash Sutcliffe Model Efficiency of 0.73 for both calibration (1995-2010) and validation (2010-2014) of daily streamflow. Ten Global Climate Models using Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 experiments with Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 and 8.5 (RCP), were used to observe hydrologic regime shifts in the 2020s, 2050s, and 2080s. Mean center timing of flow occurs earlier in the year in both pre- and post-fire conditions, where there are increased winter flows and decreased summer flows throughout the 21st century. Change in temperature and percent change in precipitation is more variable in the summer than winter increasing over time, with a slight decrease in winter precipitation in the 2080s in RCP 8.5. Temperature increases 1.6°C in RCP 4.5 and 3.3°C in RCP 8.5 by the end of the 21st century. The ratio of Snow Water Equivalent to Precipitation decreases 96% in the 2080s in RCP 8.5 before forest cover reduction, and decreases 90-99% after forest cover reduction. Potential basin recharge and the base-flow index are both sustained throughout the 21st century with slight declines before forest cover reduction, with an increase in basin recharge and increase in base-flows in the 2080s after fire-burns. However, the simulated sustained base-flows and area-weighted basin recharge in this study, do not take into account the complex geologic structure of the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG). A more robust characterization and simulation of URB aquifer recharge would involve coupling the PRMS model with a groundwater model in a future study. Although groundwater recharge in the CRBG in the URB is not well understood, the long-term decline of groundwater storage presents a serious environmental challenge for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and communities in the URB.

Climate-triggered forest disturbances are increasing either by drought or by other climate extremes. Droughts can change the structure and function of forests in long-term or cause large-scale disturbances such as tree mortality, forest fires and insect outbreaks in short-term. Traditional approaches such as dendroclimatological surveys could retrieve the long-term responses of forest trees to drought conditions; however, they are restricted to individual trees or local forest stands. Therefore, multitemporal satellite-based approaches are progressing for holistic assessment of climate-induced forest responses from regional to global scales. However, little information exists on the efficiency of satellite data for analyzing the effects of droughts in different forest biomes and further studies on the analysis of approaches and large-scale disturbances of droughts are required. This research was accomplished for assessing satellite-derived physiological responses of the Caspian Hyrcanian broadleaves forests to climate-triggered droughts from regional to large scales in northeast Iran. The 16-day physiological anomalies of rangelands and forests were analysed using MODIS-derived indices concerning water content deficit and greenness loss, and their variations were spatially assessed with monthly and inter-seasonal precipitation anomalies from 2000 to 2016. Specifically, dimensions of forest droughts were evaluated in relations with the dimensions of meteorological and hydrological droughts. Large-scale effects of droughts were explored in terms of tree mortality, insect outbreaks, and forest fires using field observations, multitemporal Landsat and TerraClimate data. Various approaches were evaluated to explore forest responses to climate hazards such as traditional regression models, spatial autocorrelations, spatial regression models, and panel data models. Key findings revealed that rangelands’ anomalies did show positive responses to monthly and inter-seasonal precipitation anomalies. However, forests’ droughts were highly associated with increases in temperatures and evapotranspiration and were slightly associated with the decreases in precipitation and surface water level. The hazard intensity of droughts has affected the water content of forests higher than their greenness properties. The stages of moderate to extreme dieback of trees were significantly associated with the hazard intensity of the deficit of forests’ water content. However, the stage of severe defoliation was only associated with the hazard intensity of forests’ greenness loss. Climate hazards significantly triggered insect outbreaks and forest fires. Although maximum temperatures, precipitation deficit, availability of soil moisture and forest fires of the previous year could significantly trigger insect outbreaks, the maximum temperatures were the only significant triggers of forest fires from 2010‒2017. In addition to climate factors, environmental and anthropogenic factors could control fire severity during a dry season. The overall evaluation indicated the evidence of spatial associations between satellite-derived forest disturbances and climate hazards. Future studies are required to apply the approaches that could handle big-data, use the satellite data that have finer wavelengths for large-scale mapping of forest disturbances, and discriminate climate-induced forest disturbances from those that induced by other biotic and abiotic agents. / Klimagbedingte Waldstörungen nehmen entweder durch Dürre oder durch andere Klimaextreme zu. Dürren können langfristig die Struktur und Funktion der Wälder verändern oder kurzfristig große Störungen wie Baumsterben, Waldbrände und Insektenausbrüche verursachen. Traditionelle Ansätze wie dendroklimatologische Untersuchungen könnten die langfristigen Reaktionen von Waldbäumen auf Dürrebedingungen aufzeigen, sie sind aber auf einzelne Bäume oder lokale Waldbestände beschränkt. Daher werden multitemporale satellitengestützte Ansätze zur ganzheitlichen Bewertung von klimabedingten Waldreaktionen auf regionaler bis globaler Ebene weiterentwickelt. Es gibt jedoch nur wenige Informationen über die Effizienz von Satellitendaten zur Analyse der Auswirkungen von Dürren in verschiedenen Waldbiotopen. Daher sind weitere Studien zur Analyse von Ansätzen und großräumigen Störungen von Dürren erforderlich. Diese Forschung wurde durchgeführt, um die aus Satellitendaten gewonnenen physiologischen Reaktionen der im Nordosten Irans gelegenen kaspischen hyrkanischen Laubwälder auf klimabedingte Dürren auf lokaler und regionaler Ebene zu bewerten. Auf der Grundlage der aus MODIS-Daten abgeleiteten Indizes wurden die 16-tägigen physiologischen Anomalien von Weideland und Wäldern in Bezug auf Wassergehaltsdefizit und Grünverlust analysiert und ihre Variationen räumlich mit monatlichen und intersaisonalen Niederschlagsanomalien von 2000 bis 2016 bewertet. Insbesondere wurden die Dimensionen der Walddürre in Verbindung mit den Dimensionen der meteorologischen und hydrologischen Dürre bewertet. Großräumige Auswirkungen von Dürren wurden in Bezug auf Baumsterblichkeit, Insektenausbrüche und Waldbrände mit Hilfe von Feldbeobachtungen, multitemporalen Landsat- und TerraClimate Daten untersucht. Verschiedene Ansätze wurden ausgewertet, um Waldreaktionen auf Klimagefahren wie traditionelle Regressionsmodelle, räumliche Autokorrelationen, räumliche Regressionsmodelle und Paneldatenmodelle zu untersuchen. Die wichtigsten Ergebnisse zeigten, dass die Anomalien von Weideland positive Reaktionen auf monatliche und intersaisonale Niederschlagsanomalien aufweisen. Die Dürren in den Wäldern waren jedoch in hohem Maße mit Temperaturerhöhungen und Evapotranspiration verbunden und standen in geringem Zusammenhang mit dem Rückgang von Niederschlägen und des Oberflächenwasserspiegels. Die Gefährdungsintensität von Dürren hat den Wassergehalt von Wäldern stärker beeinflusst als die Eigenschaften ihres Blattgrüns. Die Stufen mittlerer bis extremer Baumsterblichkeit waren signifikant mit der Gefährdungsintensität des Defizits des Wassergehalts der Wälder verbunden. Das Ausmaß der starken Entlaubung hing jedoch nur mit der Gefährdungsintensität des Grünverlustes der Wälder zusammen. Die Klimagefahren haben zu deutlichen Insektenausbrüchen und Waldbränden geführt. Obwohl Maximaltemperaturen, Niederschlagsdefizite, fehlende Bodenfeuchte und Waldbrände des Vorjahres deutlich Insektenausbrüche auslösen konnten, waren die Maximaltemperaturen die einzigen signifikanten Auslöser von Waldbränden von 2010 bis 2017. Neben den Klimafaktoren können auch umweltbedingte und anthropogene Faktoren den Schweregrad eines Brandes während einer Trockenzeit beeinflussen. Die Gesamtbewertung zeigt Hinweise auf räumliche Zusammenhänge zwischen aus Satellitendaten abgeleiteten Waldstörungen und Klimagefahren. Weitere Untersuchungen sind erforderlich, um Ansätze anzuwenden, die mit großen Datenmengen umgehen können, die Satellitendaten in einer hohen spektralen Auflösung für die großmaßstäbige Kartierung von Waldstörungen verwenden und die klimabedingte Waldstörungen von denen zu unterscheiden, die durch andere biotische und abiotische Faktoren verursacht werden.

The summer of 2018 has gone down in history as one of the hottest summers in Sweden of all time. The forest was on fire in several places around the country and in retrospect, the fires have been described as the most extensive forest fires in Sweden in modern times. The purpose of this essay is to investigate the framing of the forest fires in both local and national press. The method we chose to conduct the survey was a quantitative content analysis of a total of 116 articles about the forest fires, 74 from the local newspapers Ljusdals-Posten and Mora Tidning, and 41 from the national newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet.The results of the study showed that there were major differences in the reporting and framing of the forest fires between the local newspapers and the national newspapers. The local newspapers had a much greater focus on proximity in their reporting compared to the nationwide newspapers which focused much more on threats and conflicts. The result also showed that the local newspapers had a much more positive tonality in their reporting, unlike the nationwide newspapers which were predominantly negative. / Sommaren 2018 har gått till historien som en av de varmaste somrarna i Sverige genom tiderna. Det brann i skogarna på flera platser runt om i landet och i efterhand så har bränderna beskrivits som de mest omfattande skogsbränderna i Sverige i modern tid.Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur gestaltningen av skogsbränderna såg ut i både lokalpress och rikstäckande press. Metoden vi valde för att genomföra undersökningen var en kvantitativ innehållsanalys. Totalt analyserades 115 artiklar som handlade om skogsbränderna. 74 från lokaltidningarna Ljusdals-Posten och Mora Tidning samt 41 från de rikstäckande tidningarna Dagens Nyheter och Svenska Dagbladet.Resultatet av studien visade att det fanns stora skillnader i rapporteringen om och gestaltningen av skogsbränderna mellan de lokala tidningarna och de rikstäckande tidningarna. De lokala tidningarna hade ett mycket större fokus på närhet i sin rapportering jämfört med de rikstäckande tidningarna som i mycket högre grad fokuserade på hot och konflikter. Resultatet visade även att de lokala tidningarna hade en mycket mer positiv tonalitet i sin rapportering till skillnad från de rikstäckande tidningarna som var övervägande negativa.

Le feu est la principale perturbation naturelle dynamisant les écosystèmes du biome boréal. En ce sens, il affecte toutes les composantes de ces écosystèmes, incluant le couvert végétal, les conditions du sol, la faune et les populations humaines. Des effets complexes des changements climatiques sur les feux sont à prévoir, et la compréhension de ces effets est cruciale pour prédire le futur des écosystèmes et leur impact sur les populations locales. Ceci est d’autant plus vrai que les études portant sur l’écologie des feux sont rares pour les zones plus nordiques, comme au Nunatsiavut, la région Inuite du nord du Labrador. De plus, bien que la science occidentale puisse aider à développer cette compréhension, le savoir écologique des populations autochtones qui ont toujours cohabité avec les feux est aussi fondamental. Dans ce contexte, des entrevues semi-dirigées ont été menées dans deux communautés inuites (Nain et Postville, Nunatsiavut) pour documenter le savoir inuit local au sujet de cette perturbation et de ses impacts. Des inventaires écologiques traditionnels ont aussi été menés, complémentant les savoirs inuits. Les populations végétales au sol ont aussi été caractérisées sur le site de trois feux de forêt en régénération pour clarifier comment ces communautés végétales se rétablissent après feu dans la région, et comment certaines variables environnementales et biotiques affectent cette réponse. Comme résultats clefs, cette étude a démontré que les utilisations des sites de feux par les Inuit sont dominées par la récolte de bois brûlés, suivi d’activités généralement réalisées en parallèle comme la chasse. La relation avec le feu varie entre les deux communautés, cette relation étant plus proche à Postville qu’à Nain en lien avec des différences dans la taille et la distance des feux par rapport aux communautés, de même que différents niveaux d’hétérogénéité dans le paysage avant le passage des feux. Cette étude a démontré que le rétablissement des communautés végétales après feux en milieux côtiers au Nunatsiavut suit les patrons généraux observés ailleurs, notamment dans le sud-est et l’ouest du Labrador, tels qu’une transition des communautés muscinales de lichens, avec quelques exceptions notables, telle que des effets négatifs inattendus du feu sur Vaccinium angustifolium, qui devraient faire l’objet de recherches plus approfondies. / Forest fires are the predominant natural disturbance driving ecosystem dynamics in the boreal forest. As such, fire affects all components of these ecosystems, including vegetation cover, soil condition, wildlife and human populations. As ongoing climate change is expected to have complex impacts on forest fires, notably increasing their frequency, intensity and magnitude, understanding these effects is crucial to predicting the future of ecosystems and their impacts on local human communities. This is especially true in areas where studies on forest and fire ecology have been scarce, as in Nunatsiavut, the Inuit region of northern Labrador, Canada, encompassing coastal mountainous zones. Furthermore, while Western science can help develop this understanding, the Indigenous Knowledge of populations that have always coexisted with fire, is also key to understand fire and its impacts. In this context, semi-structured interviews were conducted in two Inuit communities (Nain and Postville, Nunatsiavut) to document local Inuit Knowledge of fire and its impacts. To complement Inuit Knowledge, ecological field studies were also conducted. As part of this thesis three regenerating forest fire sites were studied to clarify how ground vegetation communities regenerate after fire in the region, and how environmental and biotic variables affect the responses. As key outcomes, this study showed that wood harvesting, followed by concomitant activities such as hunting and berry harvesting, dominated Inuit use of previously burnt sites. Inuit use and relationship with forest fires differed in the two studied communities, the more southern community of Postville had a closer relationship with fires than Nain, notably due to differences in the size of fires and their distance from the communities, as well as different levels of pre-fire landscape heterogeneity. This study also showed that the re-establishment patterns of ground vegetation communities after fire in coastal Nunatsiavut mostly follows those observed in southeast and western Labrador, which included community switches in moss species and lichens; however there were unexpected negative impacts of fire on Vaccinium angustifolium, which requires further investigation.

Wildfires in Canada and around the world are increasing in frequency each year from factors such as accumulated fuel load, climate changes, and pine beetle infestation. Due to an increased proportion of individuals living in the wildland–urban interface areas within Canada and due to the increasing need for firefighters to fight the growing number of fires that burn each year, the potential threat for humans is also becoming greater. Conducted on the 2009 West Kelowna, British Columbia wildfires, this descriptive, exploratory, qualitative study incorporates quantitative validity measurements to investigate factors related to individual variations in psychological distress and posttraumatic growth (PTG). The findings revealed that perception of control, social support, compounding stressors (i.e., dual roles, ongoing responsibilities and personal issues), and coping methods (i.e., debriefing, humour, self-care behaviours, and reflection) were precursors to psychological health and resilience. Since wildfires are increasing in Canada as well as on a global scale, understanding how they affect residents and firefighting personnel from a mental health perspective is important to research, as it can lead to identifying more effective interventions, better provision of disaster relief services, and increase individual resilience. / xi, 193 leaves ; 29 cm

No description available.

Bushfires are an integral part of the Australian environment, and consequently Australian fire fighters are regularly confronted with the challenge of bushfire fighting activities. Bushfires can be extensive and long-lasting, and as a result fire fighters can be exposed to bushfire smoke for long periods without respite. Anecdotal evidence suggests that bushfire smoke exposure can lead to respiratory symptoms such as coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath. In an optimal environment, fire fighters are equipped with respirators and protective filters to prevent the inhalation of the air toxics in bushfire smoke. Yet, reports from the fire ground indicate that the protective filters are not effective in preventing the inhalation of bushfire smoke. As a result, fire fighters have increasingly expressed concern about the ineffective equipment and the resultant respiratory symptoms during and after bushfire fighting. This research aims to establish a scientific data base to support the anecdotal evidence. The objectives of the research were: (1) to identify and quantify the air toxics in Western Australian bushfire smoke; (2) to profile the acute respiratory health effects associated with bushfire smoke exposure; (3) to assess the effectiveness of three different types of filters under controlled conditions in a smoke chamber, and in the field during fuel reduction burn-off; (4) to formulate recommendations for reducing fire fighters' exposure to bushfire smoke; and (5) to inform policy decision makers about the most effective form of respiratory protective equipment for bushfire fighting. Exposure trials were conducted in an experimental setting utilising bushfire smoke conditions in a smoke chamber and during prescribed burn-offs. Repeated measurements of respiratory symptoms, pulmonary function and oximetry were undertaken before and after bushfire smoke exposure. In addition, personal air sampling inside the respirators was undertaken to quantify and compare the levels of filtered air toxics. The analysis of the collected data demonstrated that, of those compared, the particulate/organic vapour formaldehyde filter was most effective in protecting fire fighters' respiratory health during the smoke exposure period of maximally 120 minutes. Further research would be useful to determine the v effectiveness of the filters under more realistic conditions during bushfire fighting activities. The findings of this research have resulted in a policy review in Western Australia. In 2006, the Fire and Emergency Services Authority of Western Australia (FESA) reviewed its Bush Fire Smoke Exposure Standard Operational Procedures 51, and now issues the recommended particulate/organic vapour/formaldehyde filters to the 1,000 FESA career fire fighters. The use of protective equipment for bushfire fighters is inadequately regulated worldwide and the recommendation implemented by FESA can be seen as proactive and in advance of national and international best practice. In conclusion, this project was instrumental in the translation of public health research into best practice that protects occupational health, without the need for the lengthy process of legislative reform. Fire fighter organisations in other countries with high frequencies of bushfires could learn from this example, and move to review their policies and introduce adequate personal protection for fire fighters.