Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Vulnerability of land systems to fire: Interactions among humans, climate, the atmosphere, and ecosystems

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Fires are critical elements in the Earth System, linking climate, humans, and vegetation. With 200–500 Mha burnt annually, fire disturbs a greater area over a wider variety of biomes than any other natural disturbance. Fire ignition, propagation, and impacts depend on the interactions among climate, vegetation structure, and land use on local to regional scales. Therefore, fires and their effects on terrestrial ecosystems are highly sensitive to global change. Fires can cause dramatic changes in the structure and functioning of ecosystems. They have significant impacts on the atmosphere and biogeochemical cycles. By contributing significantly to greenhouse gas (e.g., with the release of 1.7–4.1 Pg of carbon per year) and aerosol emissions, and modifying surface properties, they affect not only vegetation but also climate. Fires also modify the provision of a variety of ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, soil fertility, grazing value, biodiversity, and tourism, and can hence trigger land use change. Fires must therefore be included in global and regional assessments of vulnerability to global change. Fundamental understanding of vulnerability of land systems to fire is required to advise management and policy. Assessing regional vulnerabilities resulting from biophysical and human consequences of changed fire regimes under global change scenarios requires an integrated approach. Here we present a generic conceptual framework for such integrated, multidisciplinary studies. The framework is structured around three interacting (partially nested) subsystems whose contribute to vulnerability. The first subsystem describes the controls on fire regimes (exposure). A first feedback subsystem links fire regimes to atmospheric and climate dynamics within the Earth System (sensitivity), while the second feedback subsystem links changes in fire regimes to changes in the provision of ecological services and to their consequences for human systems (adaptability). We then briefly illustrate how the framework can be applied to two regional cases with contrasting ecological and human context: boreal forests of northern America and African savannahs.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Agee JK, Huff MH (1987) Fuel succession in a western hemlock–Douglas fir forest. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 17:699–704

    Google Scholar 

  • Amiro BD, Chen JM, Liu J (2000) Net primary productivity following forest fire for Canadian ecoregions. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 30:939–947

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Amiro BD, Flannigan MD, Stocks BJ, Wotton BM (2002) Perspectives on carbon emissions from Canadian forest fires. Forestry Chronicle 78:388–390

    Google Scholar 

  • Amiro BD, MacPherson JL, Desjardins RL (1999) BOREAS flight measurements for forest-fire effects on carbon dioxide and energy fluxes. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 96:199–208

    Google Scholar 

  • Andreae MO, Merlet P (2001) Emission of trace gases and aerosols from biomass burning. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 15:955–966

    Google Scholar 

  • Bachelet D, Lenihan JM, Daly C, Neilson RP (2000) Interactions between fire, grazing and climate change at Wind Cave National Park, SD. Ecological Modelling 134:229–244

    Google Scholar 

  • Baker WL (1992) Effects of settlement and fire suppression on landscape structure. Ecology 73:1879–1887

    Google Scholar 

  • Barbosa P, Stroppiana MD, Grégoire JM, Pereira JMC (1999) An assessment of vegetation fire in Africa (1981–1991): burned areas, burned biomass, and atmospheric emissions. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 13:933–950

  • Beckage B, Platt WJ (2003) Predicting severe wildfire years in the Florida Everglades. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 1:235–239

    Google Scholar 

  • Bond WJ, Midgley GF, Woodward FI (2003a) The importance of low atmospheric CO2 and fire in promoting the spread of grasslands and savannas. Global Change Biology 9:973–982

  • Bond WJ, Midgley GF, Woodward FI (2003b) What controls South African vegetation – climate or fire. South African Journal of Science 69:79–91

    Google Scholar 

  • Bond WJ, van Wilgen BW (1996) Fire and Plants. Chapman and Hall, London, pp 263

  • Bowman DMJS (2000) Australian Rainforests, Islands of Green in a Land of Fire. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

  • Brubaker LB (1986) Responses of tree populations to climate change. Vegetation 67:119–130

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cardoso M, Hurtt GC, Moore III B, Nobre CA, Prins EM (2003) Projecting future fire activity in Amazonia. Global Change Biology 9:656–669

  • Chapin III FS, McGuire AD, Randerson J, Pielke Sr R, Baldocchi D, Hobbie SE, Roulet N, Eugster W, Kasischke E, Rastetter EB, Zimov SA, Running SW (2000) Arctic and boreal ecosystems of western North America as components of the climate system. Global Change Biology 6:211–223

    Google Scholar 

  • Chapin III FS, Rupp TS, Starfield AM, DeWilde L, Zavaleta ES, Fresco N, Henkelman J, McGuire AD (2003) Planning for resilience: modeling change in human-fire interactions in the Alaskan boreal forest. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 1:255–261

    Google Scholar 

  • Chokkalingam U, Suyanto, Pandu Permana R, Kurniawan I, Mannes J, Darmawan A, Khususyiah N, Hendro Susanto R Community fire use, resource change and livelihood impactst: the downward spiral in the wetlands of southern Sumatra. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, this issue

  • Clark JS, Cachier H, Goldammer JG, Stocks B (eds) (1997) Sediment Records of Biomass Burning and Global Change. NATO ASI Series I, vol. 51. Springer-Verlag, Berlin

  • Cochrane MA (2001) Understanding the impacts of tropical forest fires. Environment 29–38

  • Cochrane MA (2003) Fire science for rainforests. Nature 421:913–921

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cochrane MA, Alencar A, Schulze MD, Souza Jr CM, Nepstad D, Lefebvre P, Davidson EA (1999) Positive feedbacks in the fire dynamic of closed canopy tropical forests. Science 284:1832–1835

    Google Scholar 

  • Cofer III WR, Winstead EL, Stocks BJ, Goldammer JG, Cahoon DR (1998) Crown fire emissions of CO2, CO, H2, CH4 and TNMHC from a dense jack pine boreal forest fire. Geophysical Research Letters 25:3919–3922

    Google Scholar 

  • Conrad SG, Sukhinin AL, Stocks BJ, Cahoon DR, Davidendo EP, Ivanova GA (2002) Determining effects of area burned and fire severity on carbon cycling and emissions in Siberia. Climatic Change 55:197–211

    Google Scholar 

  • Crutzen PJ, Andreae MO (1990) Biomass burning in the tropics: impact on atmospheric chemical and biogeochemical cycles. Science 250:1669–1678

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dale VH, Joyce LA, McNulty S, Neilson RP, Ayres MP, Flannigan MD, Hanson PJ, Irland LC, Lugo AE, Peterson CJ, Simberloff D, Swanson FJ, Stocks BJ, Wotton BM (2001) Climate change and forest disturbances. Bioscience 51:723–734

    Google Scholar 

  • D'Antonio CM, Dudley TL, Mack M (1999) Disturbance and biological invasions: direct effects and feedbacks. In: Walker LR (ed) Ecosystems of Disturbed Ground. Elsevier, pp 413–452

  • DeBano LF, Neary DG, Folliott PF (1998) Fire's Effects on Ecosystems. John Wiley and Sons, New York

  • de Groot WJ, Field R, Brady MA, Roswintiarti O, Maznorizan M Development of the Indonesian and Malaysian fire danger rating systems. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, this issue

  • Dixon RK, Brown S, Houghton RA, Solomon AM, Trexler MC, Wisniewski J (1994) Carbon pools and fluxes of global forest ecosystems. Science 263:185–190

    Google Scholar 

  • Eva H, Lambin EF (2000) Fires and land-cover changes in the tropics: A remote sensing analysis at the landscape scale. Journal of Biogeography 27:765–776

    Google Scholar 

  • Flannigan MD, Bergeron Y, Engelmark O, Wotton BM (1998) Future wildfire in circumboreal forests in relation to global warming. Journal of Vegetation Science 9:469–476

    Google Scholar 

  • Flannigan MD, Campbell I, Wotton BM, Carcaillet C, Richard P, Bergeron Y (2001) Future fire in Canada's boreal forest: paleoecology results, and general circulation model–regional climate model simulations. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 31:54–864

    Google Scholar 

  • Flannigan MD, Harrington JB (1988) A study of the relation of meteorological variables to monthly provincial area burned by wildfire in Canada 1953–80. Journal of Applied Meteorology 27:441–452

    Google Scholar 

  • Flannigan MD, Van Wagner CE (1991) Climate change and wildfire in Canada. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 21:66–72

    Google Scholar 

  • Flannigan MD, Wotton BM (2001) Climate, weather, and area burned. In: Johnson EA, Miyanishi K (eds.) Forest Fires. Academic Press, San Diego, CA, pp 335–357

  • Foster D, Swanson F, Aber J, Burke I, Brokaw N, Tilman D, Knapp A (2003) The importance of land use legacies to ecology and conservation. Bioscience 53:77–88

    Google Scholar 

  • Glenn SM, Collins SL, Gibson DJ (1992) Disturbances in tallgrass prairie: local and regional effects on community. Landscape Ecology 7:243–251

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldammer JG (1993) Feuer in Waldökosystemen der Tropen und Subtropen. Birkhäuser-Verlag, Basel

  • Goldammer JG History of vegetation fires in Southeast Asia before the 1997–98 episode: A reconstruction of creeping environmental change. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, this issue

  • Goldammer JG, Mutch RW (2001) Global Forest Fire Assessment. FAO Forest Resources Assessment Programme, Working Paper 59, FAO, Rome

  • Hély C, Flannigan MD, Bergeron Y, McRae D (2001) Role of vegetation and weather on fire behavior in the Canadian mixedwood boreal forest using two fire behavior prediction systems. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 31:430–441

    Google Scholar 

  • Hessl A (2002) Aspen, elk, and fire: the effects of human institutions on ecosystem processes. Bioscience 52:1011–1022

    Google Scholar 

  • Hicke JA, Asner GP, Kasischke ES, French NHF, Randerson JT, Collatz GJ, Stocks BJ, Tucker CJ, Los SP, Field CB (2003) Postfire response of North American boreal forest net primary productivity analyzed with satellite observations. Global Change Biology 9:1145–1157

    Google Scholar 

  • Holdsworth AR, Uhl C (1997) Fire in Amazonian selectively logged rain forest and the potential for fire reduction. Ecological Applications 7:713–725

    Google Scholar 

  • Houghton JT (ed) (2001) IPCC Climate Change 2001. The Scientific Basis: Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

  • Howe HF (1993) Managing species diversity in tallgrass prairie: assumptions and implications. Conservation Biology 8:691–704

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hughes RF, Kauffman JB, Cummings DL (2000) Fire in the Brazilian Amazon: 3. Dynamics of biomass, C, and nutrient pools in regenerating forests. Oecologia 124:574–588

    Google Scholar 

  • Irland LC, Adams D, Alig R, Betz CJ, Chen CC, Hutchins M, McCarl BA, Skog K, Sohngen BL (2001) Assessing socioeconomic impacts of climate change on U.S. forests, wood-product markets, and forest recreation. Bioscience 51:753–764

  • Jacobson MZ (2001) Strong radiative heating due to the mixing state of black carbon in atmospheric aerosols. Nature 409:695–607

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson EA, Cochrane MA (2003) Disturbance regime interactions. In: Lovejoy TE, Hannah L (eds) Climate Change and Biodiversity: Synergistic Impacts. Yale University Press, pp 39–44

  • Jones CL, Smithers NL, Scholes MC, Scholes RJ (1990) The effect of fire frequency on the organic components of a basaltic soil in the Kruger National Park. South African Journal of Plant and Soil 7:236–238

    Google Scholar 

  • Keeley JE, Fotheringham CJ (2001) Historic fire regime in southern California shrublands. Conservation Biology 15:1536–1548

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kitsberger T, Swetnam TW, Veblen TT (2001) Inter-hemispheric synchrony of forest fires and the El Nino-Southern Oscillation. Global Ecology and Biogeography 19:315–326

    Google Scholar 

  • Knapp AK, Seastedt TR (1986) Detritus accumulation limits productivity of tallgrass prairie. Bioscience 36:662–668

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuhlbusch TAJ, Crutzen PJ (1995) Toward a global estimate of black carbon in residues of vegetation fires representing a sink of atmospheric CO2 and a source of O2. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 9:491–501

    Google Scholar 

  • Kurz WA, Apps MJ (1999) A 70-year retrospective analysis of carbon fluxes in the Canadian forest sector. Ecological Applications 9:526–547

    Google Scholar 

  • Kurz WA, Apps MJ, Stocks BJ, Volney JA (1995) Global climate change: disturbance regimes and biospheric feedbacks of temperate and boreal forests. In: Woodwell GM, Mackenzie FT (eds) Biotic Feedbacks in the Global Climatic System: Will the Warming Feed the Warming? Oxford University Press, New York, pp 119–133

  • Laris P (2002) Burning the seasonal mosaic: preventative burning strategies in the West African savanna. Human Ecology 30:155–186

    Google Scholar 

  • Lavorel S (1999) Ecological diversity and resilience of Mediterranean vegetation to disturbance. Diversity and Distributions 5:3–13

    Google Scholar 

  • Lavorel S, Steffen W (2004) Cascading impacts of land use through time: the Canberra bushfire disaster. In: Steffen W, Sanderson A, Tyson P, Jäger J, Matson P, Moore IB, Oldfield F, Richardson K, Schellnhuber H-J, Turner II BL, Wasson R (eds) Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp 186–188

  • Lenihan JM, Daly C, Bachelet D, Neilson RP (1998) Simulating broad-scale fire severity in a dynamic global vegetation model. Northwest Science 72:91–103

    Google Scholar 

  • Levine JS (1999) The 1997 fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra, Indonesia: gaseous and particulate emissions. Geophysical Research Letters 26:815–818

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindenmayer DB, Foster DR, Franklin JF, Hunter ML, Noss RF, Schmiegelow FA, Perry D (2004) Salvage harvesting policies after natural disturbance. Science 303:1303–

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindesay JA, Andreae MO, Goldammer JG, Harris G, Annegarn HJ, Garstan M, Scholes RJ, van Wilgen BW (1996) International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme/International Global Atmospheric Chemistry SAFARI-92 field experiment: background and overview (Paper 96JD01512). Journal of Geophysical Research 101(D19):521–530

  • Lyons WA, Nelson TE, Williams ER, Cramer JA, Turner TR (1998) Enhanced positive cloud-to-ground lightning in thunderstorms ingesting smoke from fires Science 282 80

  • Mbow C, Nielssen TT, Rasmussen K (2000) Savanna fires in east-central Senegal: distribution patterns, resource management and perceptions. Human Ecology 28:561–583

    Google Scholar 

  • Moreno JM (ed) (1998) Large Forest Fires. Backhuys, Leiden, the Netherlands

  • Murdiyarso D, Adiningsih ES Climatic anomalies, Indonesian vegetation fires and terrestrial carbon emissions. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change. this issue

  • Murdiyarso D, Widodo M, Suyamto D (2002) Fire risks in forest carbon project in Indonesia. Journal of Science in China 5:65–74

    Google Scholar 

  • Naveh Z (1994) The role of fire and its management in the conservation of Mediterranean ecosystems and landscape. In: Moreno JM, Oechel WC (eds) The Role of Fire in Mediterranean-Type Ecosystems. Springer-Verlag, New York, pp 163–185

  • Neilson RP, Pitelka LF, Solomon AM, Nathan R, Midgley GF, Fragoso JMV, Lischke H, Thompson K (2005) Forecasting regional to global plant migration in response to climate change. Bioscience 55:749–759

    Google Scholar 

  • Nepstad D, Carvalho G, Barros AC, Alençar A, Capobianco JP, Bishop J, Moutinho P, Lefebvre P, Silva UL, Prins E (2001) Road paving, fire regime feedbacks, and the future of Amazon forests. Forest Ecology and Management 154:395–407

    Google Scholar 

  • Nepstad DC, Veríssimo A, Alencar A, Nobre C, Lima E, Lefebvre P, Schlesinger P, Potter C, Moutinho P, Mendoza E, Cochrane M, Brooks V (1999) Large-scale impoverishment of Amazonian forests by logging and fire. Nature 398:505–508

    Google Scholar 

  • Noble IR, Scholes RJ (2001) Sinks and the Kyoto Protocol. Climate Policy 1:5–25

    Google Scholar 

  • Otter LB, Marufu L, Scholes MC (2001) Biogenic, biomass and biofuel sources of trace gases in southern Africa. South African Journal of Science 9:131–138

    Google Scholar 

  • Page SE, Siegert F, Rieley JO, Boehm H-DV, Jaya A, Limin S (2002) The amount of carbon released from peat and forest fires in Indonesia during 1997. Nature 420:61–65

    Google Scholar 

  • Pausas JG (2004) Changes in fire and climate in the eastern Iberian Peninsula (Mediterranean basin). Climatic Change 63:337–350

    Google Scholar 

  • Pausas JG, Bradstock RA, Keith DA, Keeley JE, the GCTE Fire Network (2004) Plant functional traits in relation to fire in crown-fire ecosystems. Ecology, in press

  • Pielke Sr RA (2001) Influence of the spatial distribution of vegetation and soils on the prediction of cumulus convective rainfall Reviews of Geophysics 39:151–177

    Google Scholar 

  • Price C, Rind D (1994) The impact of a 2×CO2 climate on lightning-caused fires. Journal of Climate 7:1484–1494

    Google Scholar 

  • Pyne SJ (1997) Vestal Fire: An Environmental History Told through Fire, of Europe and Europe's Encounter with the World. University of Washington Press, Seattle

  • Pyne SJ (2001) Fire: A Brief History. University of Washington Press, Seattle

  • Qadri TS (2001) Fire, Smoke, and Haze: The ASEAN Response Strategy. Asian Development Bank, Philippines

  • Román-Cuesta RM, Gracia M, Retana J (2003) Environmental and human factors influencing fire trends in ENSO and non-ENSO years in tropical Mexico. Ecological Applications 13:1177–1192

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenfeld D (1999) TRMM observed first direct evidence of smoke from forest fires inhibiting rainfall. Geophysical Research Letters 26:3105–3108

    Google Scholar 

  • Rupp TS, Chapin III FS, Starfield AM (2000) Response of subarctic vegetation to transient climatic change on the Seward Peninsula in north-west Alaska. Global Change Biology 6:541–555

  • Rupp TS, Starfield AM, Chapin III FS (2000) A frame-based spatially explicit model of subarctic vegetation response to climatic change: a comparison with a point model. Landscape Ecology 15:383–400

    Google Scholar 

  • Russell-Smith J, Stanton P (2002) Fire regimes and fire management of rainforest communities across northern Australia. In: Bradstock RA, Williams JE, Gill AM (eds) Flammable Australia: The Fire Regimes and Biodiversity of a Continent. University Press Cambridge, pp 329–350

  • Schimel DS, House JI, Hibbard KA, Bousquet P, Ciais P, Peylin P, Braswell BH, Apps MJ, Baker D, Bondeau A, Canadell J, Churkina G, Cramer W, Denning AS, Field CB, Friedlingstein P, Goodale C, Heimann M, Houghton RA, Melillo JM, Moore III B, Murdiyarso D, Noble I, Pacala SW, Prentice IC, Raupach MR, Rayner PJ, Scholes RJ, Steffen WL, Wirth C (2001) Recent patterns and mechanisms of carbon exchange by terrestrial ecosystems. Nature 414:169–172

    Google Scholar 

  • Scholes MC, Scholes RJ, Otter LB, Woghiren A (2003) Biogeochemistry: the cycling of nutrients in the Kruger National Park. In: du Toit J, Biggs H, Rogers KH (eds.) The Kruger Experience: Ecology and Management of Savanna Heterogeneity. Island Press, Washington, pp 130–148

  • Scholes RJ, Walker BH (eds) (1993) An African Savanna: Synthesis of the Nylsvley Study. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

  • Schule W (1990) Landscapes and climate in prehistory: interactions of wildfire, man and fire. In Goldammer JC (ed.) Fire in Tropical Biota: Ecosystem Processes and Global Changes. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp 271–318

  • Siegert F, Ruecker G, Hinrichs A, Hoffmann AA (2001) Increased damage from fires in logged forest during droughts caused by El Niño. Nature 414:437–440

    Google Scholar 

  • Skinner WR, Flannigan MD, Stocks BJ, Martell DM, Wotton BM, Todd JB, Mason JA, Logan KA, Bosch EM (2001) A 500 mb synoptic wildland fire climatology from large Canadian forest fires, 1959–1996. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 71:157–169

    Google Scholar 

  • Stocks BJ, Fosberg MA, Lynham TJ, Mearns L, Wotton BM, Yang Q, Jin J-Z, Lawrence K, Hartley GR, Mason JA, McKenny DW (1998) Climate change and forest fire potential in Russian and Canadian boreal forests. Climatic Change 38:1–13

    Google Scholar 

  • Stocks BJ, Mason JA, Todd JB, Bosch EM, Wotton BM, Amiro BD, Flannigan MD, Hirsch KG, Logan KA, Martell DL, Skinner WR (2002) Large forest fires in Canada, 1959–1997' Journal of Geophysical Research 107:8149, doi:10.1029/2001JD000484

    Google Scholar 

  • Stolle F, Chomitz K, Lambin EF, Tomich T (2003) Land use and vegetation fires in Jambi Province, Sumatra, Indonesia. Forest Ecology and Management 179:277–292

    Google Scholar 

  • Swetnam TW (1993) Fire history and climate change in giant sequoia groves Science 262:885–889

  • Tacconi L, Moore PF, Kaimowitz D Fires in tropical forests: throwing good money after bad? Lessons from Indonesia. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change. this issue

  • Thonicke K, Venevsky S, Sitch S, Cramer W (2001) The role of fire disturbance for global vegetation dynamics: coupling fire into a Dynamic Vegetation Model. Global Ecology and Biogeography 10:661–678

    Google Scholar 

  • Tilman D, Reich PB, Phillips H, Menton M, Patel A, Vos E, Peterson DL, Knops J (2000) Fire suppression and ecosystem carbon storage. Ecology 81:2680–2685

    Google Scholar 

  • Trapnell CG (1959) Ecological results of wood-land burning experiments in northern Rhodesia. Journal of Ecology 47:129–168

    Google Scholar 

  • Trollope WS (1982) Ecological effects of fire in South African savannas. In: Huntley BJ, Walker BH (eds.) Ecology of Tropical Savannas. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp 92–306

  • Turner II BL, Kasperson RE, Matson PA, McCarthy JJ, Corell RW, Christensen L, Eckley N, Kasperson JX, Luers L, Martello ML, Polsky C, Pulsipher A, Schiller A (2003) A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100:8074–8079

  • Turner MG, Gardner RH, O'Neill RV (2001) Landscape Ecology in Theory and Practice: Pattern and Process. Springer-Verlag, New York

  • Turner MG, Romme WH (1994) Landscape dynamics in crown fire ecosystems. Landscape Ecology 9:59–77

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Nieuwstadt MGL, Sheil D, Kartawinata K (2001) The ecological consequences of logging in the burned forests of East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Conservation Ecology 15:1183–1186

    Google Scholar 

  • Venevsky S, Thonicke K, Sitch S, Cramer W (2002) Simulating fire regimes in human-dominated ecosystems: Iberian Peninsula case study. Global Change Biology 8:984–998

    Google Scholar 

  • Wan S, Hui D, Luo Y (2001) Fire effects on nitrogen pools and dynamics in terrestrial ecosystems: a meta-analysis. Ecological Applications 11:1349–1365

    Google Scholar 

  • Wang C, Gower ST, Wang Y, Zhao H, Yan P, Bond-Lamberty BP (2001) The influence of fire on carbon distribution and net primary production of boreal Larix gmelinii forests in north-eastern China. Global Change Biology 7:719–730

    Google Scholar 

  • Weber MG, Flannigan MD (1997) Canadian boreal forest ecosystem structure and function in a changing climate: impact on fire regimes. Environmental Reviews 5:145–166

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams AAJ, Karoly DJ (1999) Extreme fire weather in Australia and impact of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Australian Meteorological Magazine 48:15–22

    Google Scholar 

  • Wotawa G, Trainer M (2000) The influence of Canadian forest fires on pollutant concentrations in the United States. Science 288:324–328

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wotton BM, Martell DM, Logan KA (2003) Climate change and people-caused forest fire occurrence in Ontario. Climatic Change 60:275–295

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Young OR (2002) The institutional dimensions of environmental change: Fit, Interplay and Scale. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire d’Ecologie Alpine, CNRS, Université Joseph Fourier, BP 53 X, 38041, Grenoble Cedex 9, France

    Sandra Lavorel

  2. Research School of Biological Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, 0200, Australia

    Sandra Lavorel

  3. Canadian Forest Service, Sault Ste Marie, ON, Canada, P6A 2E5

    Mike D. Flannigan

  4. Department of Geography, University of Louvain, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Louvain, Belgium

    Eric F. Lambin

  5. Department of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwaterstrand, Johannesburg, 2000, South Africa

    Mary C. Scholes

Authors
  1. Sandra Lavorel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Mike D. Flannigan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Eric F. Lambin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Mary C. Scholes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sandra Lavorel.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Lavorel, S., Flannigan, M.D., Lambin, E.F. et al. Vulnerability of land systems to fire: Interactions among humans, climate, the atmosphere, and ecosystems. Mitig Adapt Strat Glob Change 12, 33–53 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-006-9046-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-006-9046-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation