Characterizing Fire Activity in Eastern Mediterranean Europe by Surface Temperature and Soil Moisture Variability

Abstract:

Being an agent of environmental change, wild fire is a major concern, especially in Mediterranean countries, where warm and dry summers may lead to high levels of vegetation stress. Vegetation fire, whether caused naturally or by humans, its widespread and occurrence depends on vegetation type and state, climate and meteorological conditions, land use.

The main concern of the study is quantification the physical processes related to vulnerability of biomass burning across the climatic gradient for Eastern Mediterranean Europe (Bulgaria) using satellite information. Sixteen years (2004-2019) satellite data from LSASAF FRP-PIXEL product at MSG resolution were processed in order to determine the distribution of active vegetation fires for the most risky period July-September. The work examines the relationships of wildfire statistics (number of fires and radiative energy released) to surface temperature (according LSASAF LST product), and soil moisture availability (according SVAT model) as energy-moisture related climate variables. Regression analyses for the main aggregated vegetation types (forest, shrubs, cultivated) reveals: a high positive correlation between monthly mean LST and its anomalies and fire activity, a high negative correlation between soil moisture availability anomalies and fire statistics.

Obtained knowledge about fire-climate relations on a regional scale is important to define more risky regions and periods as well as for projection the effects of global environmental change.