Title: Peatlands promote fire refugia in boreal forests of northern Alberta, Canada
Citation: Kuntzemann, C., Whitman, E., Stralberg, D., Parisien, M.-A., Thompson, D., & Nielsen, S. (2023). Peatlands promote fire refugia in boreal forests of northern Alberta, Canada. Ecosphere. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7490027
Study Site: Boreal Alberta
Purpose: In the boreal forests of North America, large wildfires often leave residual patches of unburned vegetation, termed fire refugia, which can affect post-fire ecosystem processes. Although topographic complexity is a major driver of fire refugia in mountainous terrain, refugia in boreal plains are more likely driven by a combination of other bottom-up controls on fuel configuration as well as top-down climate controls. In this study, we investigated the role of hydrological, ecological, and topographic heterogeneity, as well as climate moisture patterns, on the presence of fire refugia in forested upland and peatland ecosystems within Alberta's subhumid boreal forests over a 33-year (1985–2018) period. Generalized linear models were used to model the probability of refugia in forested stands as a function of bottom-up (vegetation, topography, site moisture, and ecosystem) and top-down (normal and annual climate moisture deficit) controls. We then developed predictive maps of refugia probability for a range of normal and interannual climate moisture deficit values.
Abstract: Fire refugia prediction rasters for both uplands and peatlands in Alberta, as well as the covariate raster stacks and 30k sample points (training and testing) used in making these predictions.
Supplemental Information Summary: This research was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) through the Advancing Climate Change Science in Canada (AACPJ) award (Funding Reference Number: ACCPJ 536068 – 18).
Research:
Further Info: Kuntzemann, Christine E., Ellen Whitman, Diana Stralberg, Marc-André Parisien, Dan K. Thompson, and Scott E. Nielsen. 2023. “ Peatlands Promote Fire Refugia in Boreal Forests of Northern Alberta, Canada.” Ecosphere 14(5): e4510. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.4510
Status: Complete
Keywords:
hydrology,
meteorology,
modeling,
remote sensing,
mapping,
wildfire,
Geographical coordinates: North: 60.02, South: 52.87 East: -110.05 West: -120.06
Bounding Temporal Extent: Start Date: 1985-01-01, End
Date: 2018-12-31
