Relationship Between Fire and Forest Cover Loss in Riau Province, Indonesia Between 2001 and 2012

Adrianto Adrianto,Arnold Arnold,Spracklen Spracklen

doi:10.3390/f10100889

Abstract

Forest and peatland fires occur regularly across Indonesia, resulting in large greenhouse gas emissions and causing major air quality issues. Over the last few decades, Indonesia has also experienced extensive forest loss and conversion of natural forest to oil palm and timber plantations. Here we used data on fire hotspots and tree-cover loss, as well as information on the extent of peat land, protected areas, and concessions to explore spatial and temporal relationships among forest, forest loss, and fire frequency. We focus on the Riau Province in Central Sumatra, one of the most active regions of fire in Indonesia. We find strong relationships between forest loss and fire at the local scale. Regions with forest loss experienced six times as many fire hotspots compared to regions with no forest loss. Forest loss and maximum fire frequency occurred within the same year, or one year apart, in 70% of the 1 km2 cells experiencing both forest loss and fire. Frequency of fire was lower both before and after forest loss, suggesting that most fire is associated with the forest loss process. On peat soils, fire frequency was a factor 10 to 100 lower in protected areas and natural forest logging concessions compared to oil palm and wood fiber (timber) concessions. Efforts to reduce fire need to address the underlying role of land-use and land-cover change in the occurrence of fire. Increased support for protected areas and natural forest logging concessions and restoration of degraded peatlands may reduce future fire risk. During times of high fire risk, fire suppression resources should be targeted to regions that are experiencing recent forest loss, as these regions are most likely to experience fire.

Highlights

Forest and peatland fires occur annually across Indonesia, resulting in large greenhouse gas emissions [1] and causing major regional air quality issues [2,3]
We show that the number of fire hotspots is a factor of 6 greater in regions of forest loss compared to regions of no loss
Since fire frequency is lower after forest loss and similar to the rate before forest loss occurred (Figure 9), we suggest that the loss of forest canopy is not the main cause of increased fire during the period of forest loss

Summary

Introduction

Forest and peatland fires occur annually across Indonesia, resulting in large greenhouse gas emissions [1] and causing major regional air quality issues [2,3]. The occurrence of fire in Indonesia is influenced both by climate [4,5] and by extensive land-cover change [6]. We analyze twelve years of data on the occurrence of fire and data on tree cover loss to better understand links between fire and land-cover change in Riau. Emissions from vegetation and peat fires in Indonesia contribute to climate change and cause severe regional air quality issues [2,3]. The large fires across Indonesia in September–October 2015, emitted 700–800 Tg CO2 [9,10], and exposed 69 million people to poor air quality [3].

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Conclusion