[PDF] Wildland Fires And The Environment eBook

Author : Andrzej Bytnerowicz
Publisher : Elsevier
Page : 688 pages
File Size : 29,51 MB
Release : 2009
Category : Nature
ISBN : 0080556094

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Wildland fires are one of the most devastating and terrifying forces of nature. While their effects are mostly destructive they also help with regeneration of forests and other ecosystems. Low-intensity fires clear accumulating biomass reducing risk of catastrophic crown fires and can be used as an effective management tool. This book presents current understanding of wildland fires and air quality as well as their effects on human health, forests and other ecosystems. in the first section of the book the basics of wildland fires and resulting emissions are presented from the perspective of changing global climate, air quality impairment and effects on environmental and human health and security. in the second section, effects of wildland fires on air quality, visibility and human health in various regions of the Earth are discussed. The third section of the book deals with complex issues of the ecological impacts of fires and air pollution in forests and chaparral in North America. The fourth section discusses various management issues facing land and fire managers which are related to wildfires, use of prescribed fires, and air quality. This section also presents various modeling systems used for describing fire dangers and behavior as well as smoke and air pollution predictions applied in the risk assessment analysis. The book concludes with a series of expert recommendations for wildland fire and atmospheric research.

Author : Edward Struzik
Publisher : Island Press
Page : 271 pages
File Size : 44,1 MB
Release : 2017-10-05
Category : Nature
ISBN : 1610918185

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"Frightening...Firestorm comes alive when Struzik discusses the work of offbeat scientists." —New York Times Book Review "Comprehensive and compelling." —Booklist "A powerful message." —Kirkus "Should be required reading." —Library Journal For two months in the spring of 2016, the world watched as wildfire ravaged the Canadian town of Fort McMurray. Firefighters named the fire “the Beast.” It acted like a mythical animal, alive with destructive energy, and they hoped never to see anything like it again. Yet it’s not a stretch to imagine we will all soon live in a world in which fires like the Beast are commonplace. A glance at international headlines shows a remarkable increase in higher temperatures, stronger winds, and drier lands– a trifecta for igniting wildfires like we’ve rarely seen before. This change is particularly noticeable in the northern forests of the United States and Canada. These forests require fire to maintain healthy ecosystems, but as the human population grows, and as changes in climate, animal and insect species, and disease cause further destabilization, wildfires have turned into a potentially uncontrollable threat to human lives and livelihoods. Our understanding of the role fire plays in healthy forests has come a long way in the past century. Despite this, we are not prepared to deal with an escalation of fire during periods of intense drought and shorter winters, earlier springs, potentially more lightning strikes and hotter summers. There is too much fuel on the ground, too many people and assets to protect, and no plan in place to deal with these challenges. In Firestorm, journalist Edward Struzik visits scorched earth from Alaska to Maine, and introduces the scientists, firefighters, and resource managers making the case for a radically different approach to managing wildfire in the 21st century. Wildfires can no longer be treated as avoidable events because the risk and dangers are becoming too great and costly. Struzik weaves a heart-pumping narrative of science, economics, politics, and human determination and points to the ways that we, and the wilder inhabitants of the forests around our cities and towns, might yet flourish in an age of growing megafires.

Author : Edward A. Johnson
Publisher : Elsevier
Page : 617 pages
File Size : 18,69 MB
Release : 2001-03-01
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 0080506747

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Even before the myth of Prometheus, fire played a crucial ecological role around the world. Numerous plant communities depend on fire to generate species diversity in both time and space. Without fire such ecosystems would become sterile monocultures. Recent efforts to prohibit fire in fire dependent communities have contributed to more intense and more damaging fires. For these reasons, foresters, ecologists, land managers, geographers, and environmental scientists are interested in the behavior and ecological effects of fires. This book will be the first to focus on the chemistry and physics of fire as it relates to the ways in which fire behaves and the impacts it has on ecosystem function. Leading international contributors have been recruited by the editors to prepare a didactic text/reference that will appeal to both advanced students and practicing professionals.

Author : Emilio Chuvieco
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 262 pages
File Size : 49,59 MB
Release : 2009-09-25
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 3642017541

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Wildland fires are becoming one of the most critical environmental factors affecting a wide range of ecosystems worldwide. In Mediterranean ecosystems (including also South-Africa, California, parts of Chile and Australia), wildland fires are recurrent phenomena every summer, following the seasonal drought. As a result of changes in traditional land use practices, and the impact of recent climate warming, fires have more negative impacts in the last years, threatening lives, socio-economic and ecological values. The book describes the ecological context of fires in the Mediterranean ecosystems, and provides methods to observe fire danger conditions and fire impacts using Earth Observation and Geographic Information System technologies.

Author : Brigitte Leblon
Publisher : Nova Science Publishers
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 41,15 MB
Release : 2015
Category : Fire ecology
ISBN : 9781634636827

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Wildland fire has and continues to impact humans and our environment both positively and negatively. Being able to co-exist with fire on the landscape is becoming increasingly more important as man expands his use of the world's ecosystems. This book is the latest contribution dedicated towards the scholarship surrounding the subject of wildland fires. The present volume consists of a collection of essays covering fire science and technology topics that support the management of wildfires and prescribed fires written by specialists in their respective fields. The nine chapters cover the following: (i) the need of fire and the consequences of policies of attempted fire exclusion to try and manage the wildfire problem; (ii) a review of the current state-of-knowledge of the role of remote sensing technologies in managing wildfires; (iii) a description of how the Canadian system of forest fire danger rating has been introduced into Argentina; (iv) the rationale for adding an "QA" for anchor point(s) to the LCES (Lookout(s)-- Communication(s) -- Escape routes -- Safety zone(s)) safety system for wildland firefighters, thus denoting LACES; (v) a case study involving the use of cloud-based geographic information system on the 2013 Silver Fire in southern California; (vi) the deaths that have occurred amongst rural firefighters and members of the public in Greece since 1997; (vii and viii) two separate overviews of the history, ecology and management of two large Argentinian regions of South America; and (ix) an assessment undertaken of wildland firefighter fatalities in South Africa over the past twenty years or so.

Author : Chad T. Hanson
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
Page : 245 pages
File Size : 19,73 MB
Release : 2021-05-25
Category : Nature
ISBN : 0813181054

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Smokescreen cuts through years of misunderstanding and misdirection to make an impassioned, evidence-based argument for a new era of forest management for the sake of the planet and the human race. Natural fires are as essential as sun and rain in fire-adapted forests, but as humans encroach on wild spaces, fear, arrogance, and greed have shaped the way that people view these regenerative events and given rise to misinformation that threatens whole ecosystems as well as humanity's chances of overcoming the climate crisis. Scientist and activist Chad T. Hanson explains how natural alarm over wildfire has been marshaled to advance corporate and political agendas, notably those of the logging industry. He also shows that, in stark contrast to the fear-driven narrative around these events, contemporary research has demonstrated that forests in the United States, North America, and around the world have a significant deficit of fire. Forest fires, including the largest ones, can create extraordinarily important and rich wildlife habitats as long as they are not subjected to postfire logging. Smokescreen confronts the devastating cost of current policies and practices head-on and ultimately offers a hopeful vision and practical suggestions for the future—one in which both communities and the climate are protected and fires are understood as a natural and necessary force.

Author : Mark Cochrane
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 696 pages
File Size : 17,85 MB
Release : 2010-04-11
Category : Science
ISBN : 3540773819

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The tropics are home to most of the world’s biodiversity and are currently the frontier for human settlement. Tropical ecosystems are being converted to agricultural and other land uses at unprecedented rates. Land conversion and maintenance almost always rely on fire and, because of this, fire is now more prevalent in the tropics than anywhere else on Earth. Despite pervasive fire, human settlement and threatened biodiversity, there is little comprehensive information available on fire and its effects in tropical ecosystems. Tropical deforestation, especially in rainforests, has been widely documented for many years. Forests are cut down and allowed to dry before being burned to remove biomass and release nutrients to grow crops. However, fires do not always stop at the borders of cleared forests. Tremendously damaging fires are increasingly spreading into forests that were never evolutionarily prepared for wild fires. The largest fires on the planet in recent decades have occurred in tropical forests and burned millions of hectares in several countries. The numerous ecosystems of the tropics have differing levels of fire resistance, resilience or dependence. At present, there is little appreciation of the seriousness of the wild fire situation in tropical rainforests but there is even less understanding of the role that fire plays in the ecology of many fire adapted tropical ecosystems, such as savannas, grasslands and other forest types.

Author : Dean Lueck
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 226 pages
File Size : 10,43 MB
Release : 2013-06-17
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1136520597

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During the five decades since its origin, law and economics has provided an influential framework for addressing a wide array of areas of law ranging from judicial behaviour to contracts. This book will reflects the first-ever forum for law and economics scholars to apply the analysis and methodologies of their field to the subject of wildfire. The only modern legal work on wildfire, the book brings together leading scholars to consider questions such as: How can public policy address the effects of climate change on wildfire, and wildfire on climate change? Are the environmental and fiscal costs of ex ante prevention measures justified? What are the appropriate levels of prevention and suppression responsibility borne by private, state, and federal actors? Can tort liability provide a solution for realigning the grossly distorted incentives that currently exist for private landowners and government firefighters? Do the existing incentives in wildfire institutions provide incentives for efficient private and collective action and how might they be improved?