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AGU: Journal of Geophysical Research, Earth Surface

 

Keywords

  • forest fires
  • power law distribution
  • partitioning

Index Terms

  • Nonlinear Geophysics: Self-organized criticality
  • Biogeosciences: Computational methods and data processing
  • Nonlinear Geophysics: Scaling: spatial and temporal
  • Biogeosciences: Natural hazards
  • Biogeosciences: Ecosystems, structure and dynamics
Abstract
Cited By (1)
 

Abstract

JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 113, F02013, 9 PP., 2008
doi:10.1029/2007JF000771

Regional partitioning for wildfire regime characterization

Paolo Fiorucci

Centro di ricerca Interuniversitario in Monitoraggio Ambientale, University of Genoa, Savona, Italy

Francesco Gaetani

Centro di ricerca Interuniversitario in Monitoraggio Ambientale, University of Genoa, Savona, Italy

Riccardo Minciardi

Centro di ricerca Interuniversitario in Monitoraggio Ambientale, University of Genoa, Savona, Italy

Wildfire regime characterization is an important issue for wildfire managers especially in densely populated areas where fires threaten communities and property. The ability to partition a region by articulating differences in timing, frequency, and intensity of the phenomena among different zones allows wildfire managers to allocate and position resources in order to minimize wildfire risk. Here we investigate “wildfire regimes” in areas where the ecoregions are difficult to identify because of their variability and human impact. Several studies have asserted that wildfire frequency-area relationships follow a power law distribution. However, this power law distribution, or any heavy-tailed distribution, may represent a set of wildfires over a certain region only because of the data aggregation process. We present an aggregation procedure for the selection of homogeneous zones for wildfire characterization and test the procedure using a case study in Liguria on the northwest coast of Italy. The results show that the estimation of the power law parameters provides significantly different results depending on the way the area is partitioned into its various components. These finds also show that it is possible to discriminate between different wildfire regimes characterizing different zones. The proposed procedure has significant implications for the identification of ecoregion variability, putting it in a more mathematical basis.

Received 13 February 2007; accepted 22 February 2008; published 6 May 2008.

Citation: Fiorucci, P., F. Gaetani, and R. Minciardi (2008), Regional partitioning for wildfire regime characterization, J. Geophys. Res., 113, F02013, doi:10.1029/2007JF000771.

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