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Type: Journal Article
Author(s): Luiz Felipe de Castro Galizia; Renaud Barbero; Marcos Rodrígues; Thomas Curt
Publication Date: 2022

Studies dealing with wildland fire at global or continental scales normally use coarse-resolution spatial units, within which fire-regime components are aggregated for statistical purposes. Here, we developed the first European pyrogeography based on different fire-regime components to better capture the spatial heterogeneity of fire regimes. Pyroregions were delineated through the identification of similar distributions of fire-regime components computed from a remote sensing dataset over the period 2001–2018. We identified four large-scale pyroregions with different patterns of fire activity across the continent. The spatial mismatch between the pyrogeography and ecoregions suggests that other factors, besides vegetation-based classification systems, are driving fire regimes in Europe. Comparisons of interannual climate-fire relationships at different spatial aggregations presented stronger relationships (R2 = 0.65) at the pyroregion level (Figure 1). Overall, the developed pyrogeography provides a level of generalization that aids in understanding fire regimes and contributes to improving the performance of statistical models that predict future fire regimes. Therefore, pyroregions can also be understood as a tool for effective fire risk management and planning.

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Citation: Galizia, Luiz Felipe; Barbero, Renaud; Rodrigues, Marcos; Curt, Thomas. 2022. Pyrogeography: an alternative zonation for Europe. Environmental Sciences Proceedings 17(1):80.

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Keywords:
  • Europe
  • fire regimes
  • FWI - Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index System
  • pyrogeography
  • remote sensing
  • spatial clustering
Record Last Modified:
Record Maintained By: FRAMES Staff (https://www.frames.gov/contact)
FRAMES Record Number: 67501