Climate Change And Wildfires

Why in News ?

Scientists note that human-induced climate change promotes the conditions on which wildfires depend, enhancing their likelihood and challenging suppression efforts. Scientist established the link between Climate Change And Wildfires.

What are the findings ?

• The finding focuses on the ongoing wildfires in the western US and the bushfires that affected in southeastern Australia in 2019-2020.
• Climate change increases the frequency and severity of fire weather around the world.
• Increasingly warm and dry conditions that have resulted from climate change, which has led to more extreme fires and more extreme fire seasons.
• Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was published in 2013 identified few factors that could influence the way wildfires play out.
  • These include global increase in average temperatures
  • Global increases in the frequency
  • Intensity and extent of heatwaves
  • Regional increases in the frequency, duration and intensity of droughts

Need for the study of Wildfire

Wildfires are typical in both California and parts of Australia in the summer months,

• The intensity and scale of wildfires that these areas have seen in recent years has raised some concerns among scientists about the linkages between human-induced climate change and fire risk.

Wildfire Prone Regions

• Somewhere between 75 million and 820 million hectares of land burn each year.
• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that widespread management practices aimed at reducing flammable materials in forests.
• Wildfires burn some 3–8 percent of total terrestrial net primary productivity annually releasing on average 1.7–4.1 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere.
• Western US, Southern Europe, Southern Canada, Southern Australia, North Asia are mostly prone to wildfire.
  • Significant increases in fire activity in high-risk areas such as southern Canada, western US and southern Europe.

India and Wildfire Issues

• Forest Survey of India (FSI) 2019 : 21.40% of forest cover in India is prone to fires, with forests in the north-eastern region and central India being the most vulnerable.
  • Fire prone area percentage 
    • Extremely fire prone areas account for 3.89% of total forest cover
    • Very highly fire prone areas account for 6.01%
    • Highly fire prone areas for 11.50%
  • Mizoram, a small State, recorded the highest number of fire alerts (2,795).
  • Central Indian States also recorded a high number of forest fire alerts, with Madhya Pradesh accounting for 2,723 alerts.
  • Major reasons for forest fires in the north-east is slash-and-burn cultivation.
• FSI report states that uncontrolled forest fires can lead to significant loss of cover

Way Forward

As population is increasing the changes of climate increases the risk of wildfire. Increased risk management will need to be taken into consideration to the landscape, type of fuels, and the prevailing climate conditions. We can adopt options like building resilient communities, Get incentives right, Break out of the firefighting trap and identifying risk factors by region.

---

Source : Indian Express

Topic

GS III : Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Current Affairs Compilation : 28 September 2020