Global patterns and influencing factors of post-fire land cover change

Abstract

Fire, as a strong disturbance type, can exert significant impacts on the biosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, cryosphere, atmosphere and human society. It can inherently trigger both critical transitions in ecosystems and dramatic changes in land cover. However, the general patterns and possible influencing factors of post-fire land cover change remain largely unclear at a global scale. Obtaining such knowledge is of great value in advancing the understanding of fire ecology and promoting sustainable fire management. Here, we combined satellite observations of long-term ESA CCI land cover (300 m resolution) and burned area data from MODIS collection 6 (500 m resolution) to assess the global post-fire land cover change patterns from 2005 to 2015. The results showed that areas with identified post-fire land cover change accounted for approximately 0.36–0.74% of the annual global burned areas during the study period and were most common in countries such as Brazil, Argentina, and the D.R. Congo. The most common land cover change types in 2005, 2010 and 2015 were “forest-to-agriculture” (31.93%), “forest-to-shrubland” (26.23%) and “agriculture-to-forest” (18.74%), respectively. In addition, the conversion between agriculture and forest, and shrubland and forest, after fire were found to be bidirectional. After assessing 14 fire-related, climatic, topographic, ecological and socioeconomic factors that could potentially influence post-fire land cover change occurrence, burned area size and vegetation cover diversity were identified as the two strongest predictors, followed by aspect, fire intensity and slope. Our results provide a global overview of post-fire land cover change patterns and offer guidance for developing sustainable fire management policies.