PARENT SESSION
Organized Oral Session 32: Forest disturbance regimes in the circumboreal forest zone: Natural variability and implications for forest management and biodiversity conservation
Organizer(s): S Gauthier, T Kuuluvainen, and D Kneeshaw
Wednesday, August 10, 8:00 AM - 11:30 AM, Meeting Room 516 C, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal
The human footprint on wildfire in the boreal forest of interior Alaska.
Calef, Monika*,1, McGuire, A. David2, Chapin, F. Stuart1, DeWilde, La'ona3, 1 Institute of Arctic Biology, Fairbanks, AK2 U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Fairbanks, AK3 Biology and Wildlife Department, Fairbanks, AK
ABSTRACT- Human impacts on the fire regime of high latitude ecosystems have the potential to influence water, energy, and carbon dioxide exchange with the atmosphere by modifying land cover and ecosystem dynamics. In this project, we assess the footprint of human activities on fire ignition and fire size in the boreal forest of Interior Alaska. We evaluated the human footprint on wildfire with distance from settlements, roads, and rivers using the historic fire record from 1956 to 2000. We then quantified this influence for the most recent decade with a statistical fire prediction model, which predicts burn probability for human and lightning caused fires based on monthly inputs of local air mass lightning strikes, temperature, precipitation, spring snowpack, topography, vegetation type, drainage type, and distance from settlements, roads, and rivers. Currently, humans are responsible for high fire frequency near settlements, roads, and rivers while at the same time suppressing large fires near structures. This impact is directly related to human access and population size. Some degree of human influence on fire can be noted throughout all of sparsely populated Interior Alaska. Model results provide a quantitative measure of the human signal relative to natural fire probabilities. Human activities further increase carbon release from wildfire which is already changing as a response to high-latitude climate warming.
Key words: boreal forest, fire, Interior Alaska, prediction model