Abstract
This study evaluates the impact of climate variability on wildfire regime in the N’Zi River Watershed (NRW) in central Côte d’Ivoire. For that purpose, MODIS active fire and monthly burned area data are used to evaluate wildfire occurrence, impacts and trends. Wildfire data are compared to past trends of different climatic parameters extracted from long-term meteorological records. Generalized additive models and Spearman correlations are used to evaluate the relationships between climate variables and wildfire occurrence. Seasonal Kendall and Sen’s slope methods were used for trend analysis. Results showed that from 2001 to 2016, 19,156 wildfire occurrences are recorded in the NRW, of which 4443 wildfire events are observed in forest, 9536 in pre-forest, and 5177 in Sudanian zones. The burned areas are evaluated at 71,979.7 km2, of which 10,488.41 km2 were registered in forest, 33,211.96 km2 in pre-forest, and 28,279.33 km2 in Sudanian zones. A downward trend is observed in fire records. The results indicates a strong correlation between some climatic variables and wildfire regime in this ecoregion. These correlations can be used to develop models that could be used as prediction tools for better management of fire regimes and support decision-making in the NRW.
Highlights
Wildfires are recognized as one of the most widespread global environmental disturbances, along with natural disasters such as droughts, floods or hurricanes [1]
Wildfires were most common during the warm season throughout both ecoregions, with moderate wildfire activity extending into the rainy season (March-April)
It is important to keep in mind that the number of active wildfires detected in this study is only the result of observations made during the four satellite overpasses and only takes into consideration those wildfires that occurred in such conditions that Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) was able to detect
Summary
Wildfires are recognized as one of the most widespread global environmental disturbances, along with natural disasters such as droughts, floods or hurricanes [1]. 350 million hectares of vegetation affected by fires around the world, half of them in sub-Saharan Africa [2]. These wildfires have several consequences, including global warming, loss of life, air pollution, desertification and loss of biodiversity [3,4,5]. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change is the largest and certainly the most critical of all the environmental challenges facing societies in the present century
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