Forest Fire Risk Under Various Climate Trends

Abstract

An increase in the risk of forest fires in Central Europe is seen as a likely consequence of global warming. Therefore, timely planning of adaptation measures is necessary and requires the evaluation of specific hazards in affected regions. Knowledge about potential regional effects of climate change on the risk of forest fires is required to protect the forested regions in the Upper Danube basin. The forest fire index of Baumgartner, which is based on the forest fire statistics from Bavaria, was implemented in a forest fire module within DANUBIA (see Chap. 74). This study evaluates the development of the climate-related risk of forest fires under 16 GLOWA-Danube scenarios for the period 2011–2060. Additionally the spatial distributions of the forest fire risk for four different climate trends based on the baseline climate variant were evaluated in more detail to detect long-term climate-related changes (2011–2035, 2036–2060). All climate scenario calculations indicate an increase in days with “high” and “exceptionally high” forest fire risk in the Upper Danube basin, but with different values in the extrema. On average across the region and over all 16 scenarios, 30 % more days with high forest fire risk are projected in the summer months during the period 2036–2060. Spatially similar pattern occur under the climate scenarios IPCC regional, REMO regional and MM5 regional. In contrast under the climate trend Perpetuation, the number of days with significant high forest fire risk is projected as almost twice as high compared to the other scenarios.