Spatio-temporal analysis of wildfires in the forest-tundra of Western Siberia
D. V. Moskovchenko1,2, S. P. Aref’ev1,2, M. D. Moskovchenko2, A. A. Yurtaev2
1Tyumen Scientific Center of SB RAS, Tyumen, Russia
2Tyumen State University, Tyumen, Russia
Keywords: Западная Сибирь, лесотундра, природные пожары, космоснимки, дендрохронология, Western Siberia, forest-tundra, natural fires, space images, dendrochronology
Abstract
Climate change of recent decades significantly increases the threat of the occurrence and distribution of wildfire in the Northwest Siberia. However, little is known about the spatial and temporal patterns of fires and their relationship with climate and vegetation in this area. As a result of the processing of Landsat satellite images for the period 1985-2017, it was determined that 10.5 % of the Western Siberia forest tundra was exposed to fires. Maximum relative area of burned forests (23 %) was found in larch and spruce-larch lichen woodlands. Geobotanical indicator of increased fire hazard is the dominance of sinusias of epigenic lichens in the vegetation cover. It is shown that the majority of heavily burned areas were distributed in the central part of the forest tundra within largest gas fields. Our results showed a positive significant correlation between square of burnt areas and summer temperature regime (average and maximum summer temperatures) and negative correlation between burned areas and the amount of summer precipitation. Dendrochronological analysis showed that the frequency of fires varied from 15 to 60 years (an average of about 30 years).
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