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Spatial and Temporal Determinants of Forest Fires on the Amazonian Deforestation Frontier: Implications for Current and Future Carbon Emissions

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Spatial and Temporal Determinants of Forest Fires on the Amazonian Deforestation Frontier: Implications for Current and Future Carbon Emissions SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL DETERMINANTS OF FOREST FIRES ON THE AMAZONIAN DEFORESTATION FRONTIER: IMPLICATIONS FOR CURRENT AND FUTURE CARBON EMISSIONS By ANE AUXILIADORA COSTA ALENCAR A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2010 1 © 2010 Ane Auxiliadora Costa Alencar 2 To my parents and grandparents 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my advisor Dr. Daniel Zarin, for being supportive, understanding, and providing me with essential guidance during the most important moments of my academic life. I would also like to thank Dr. Greg Asner from the Carnegie Institute at Stanford University for the excitement, the infrastructure, and the intellectual and mentoring support kindly given to me during this time. Many thanks to other members of my committee, Jack Putz, Wendell Cropper, and Chuck Wood, for being so important to the development of my research and helping me to have a real interdisciplinary experience. Special thanks to Jennifer Balch, Paulo Brando, David Knapp, Daniel Nepstad, Claudia Stickler and all the other researchers from the Amazon Environmental Research Institute, Woods Hole Research Center and Carnegie Institute at Stanford University, for their comments and valuable contributions to my dissertation. I also thank the support of the NSF-DDRIG award 0727220, the NASA NESSF program grant NNX07AN76H and NSF DEB-0410315, the Compton Foundation, the Tropical Conservation and Development Program, the Florida Brazil Program, and the Amazon Conservation Leadership Initiative Program at University of Florida. Without them, the academic development I achieved and the completion of this research would not have been at all feasible. Finally, I thank my parents João and Erenice Alencar, brother, sisters and nieces for always supporting my choices and being patient with my long absences. I thank all my friends in Gainesville, specially the Brazilian community that helped me to feel close to home. I also thank my dearest friends Isabel Castro, Candice Nelms, Lucimar Souza, Iran Rodriguez, Angelina Howell and Raquel Dieguez, who helped me overcome such 4 challenging times. I feel, at last, thankful for the great people in my life and for all the opportunities I was given. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4 LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ 8 LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... 9 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................... 12 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... 13 CHAPTERS 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 15 2 TEMPORAL VARIABILITY OF FOREST FIRES IN EASTERN AMAZON .............. 24 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 24 Methods .................................................................................................................. 27 Study Area and Data ........................................................................................ 27 Data .................................................................................................................. 28 Spectral Properties of Forest Fires ................................................................... 29 Mapping Forest Burn Scars (CLAS-BURN) ...................................................... 31 Burn Scar Temporal Variability and Relationship to Drought ............................ 34 Results .................................................................................................................... 35 The Spectral Properties of Forest Fires ............................................................ 35 Burn Scar Index (BSI) Maps ............................................................................. 36 Temporal Variability of Forest Fires .................................................................. 36 Burned Area and ENSO Events ....................................................................... 37 Discussion .............................................................................................................. 39 Conclusions ............................................................................................................ 43 3 CHANGING FOREST FIRE REGIMES IN THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON .................. 54 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 54 Materials and Methods............................................................................................ 58 Study Sites ....................................................................................................... 58 Data .................................................................................................................. 59 Fire Extent and Size ......................................................................................... 60 Fire Frequency and Interval .............................................................................. 61 Fire Seasonality ................................................................................................ 62 Fire Effects and Intensity .................................................................................. 62 Results .................................................................................................................... 63 Fire Extent ........................................................................................................ 63 6 Fire Size and Number ...................................................................................... 64 Fire Frequency and Interval .............................................................................. 65 Fire Seasonality ................................................................................................ 67 Fire Effects ....................................................................................................... 68 Discussion .............................................................................................................. 69 Conclusions ............................................................................................................ 73 4 FRAGMENTATION, DROUGHT AND FUTURE CARBON EMISSIONS FROM AMAZON FOREST FIRES ..................................................................................... 88 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 88 Materials and Methods............................................................................................ 91 Forest Type Case Studies ................................................................................ 91 Anthropogenic Landscape Characteristics and Forest Fires ............................ 92 Landscape Biophysical Characteristics and Forest Fires ................................. 94 Forest Fire Risk ................................................................................................ 95 Forest Fire Emissions ....................................................................................... 96 Results .................................................................................................................... 97 Deforestation and Forest Fires ......................................................................... 97 Roads and Forest Fire ...................................................................................... 98 Anthropogenic and Biophysical Landscape Variables and Fire Frequency ...... 99 Forest Fire and Climatic Conditions ............................................................... 100 Forest Fire Risk and the Potential for Fire Spread ......................................... 101 Forest Fire Emissions ..................................................................................... 103 Discussion ............................................................................................................ 104 Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 108 5 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 123 Broader Implications of Future Amazonian Forest Fires ....................................... 127 Economic Incentives to Reduce Forest Degradation Caused by Fires ................. 131 LIST OF REFERENCES ............................................................................................. 134 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................... 152 7 LIST OF TABLES Table page 1-1. Definitions of main processes related to forest and carbon loss ......................... 23 2-1. Landsat imagery used in the multi-temporal analysis of forest burn scars in the Eastern Brazilian Amazon. ........................................................................... 44 2-2. Confusion matrix for forest burn scar mapping results and field validation. ........ 45
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