Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Fire regime changes in the Western Mediterranean Basin: from fuel-limited to drought-driven fire regime

  • Published:
Climatic Change Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Wildfires are an integral part of Mediterranean ecosystems; humans impact on landscapes imply changes in fuel amount and continuity, and thus in fire regime. We tested the hypothesis that fire regime changed in western Mediterranean Basin during the last century using time series techniques. We first compiled a 130-year fire history for the Valencia province (Spain, Eastern Iberian Peninsula, Western Mediterranean Basin) from contemporary statistics plus old forest administration dossiers and newspapers. We also compiled census on rural population and climatic data for the same period in order to evaluate the role of climate and human-driven fuel changes on the fire regime change. The result suggested that there was a major fire regime shift around the early 1970s in such a way that fires increased in annual frequency (doubled) and area burned (by about an order of magnitude). The main driver of this shift was the increase in fuel amount and continuity due to rural depopulation (vegetation and fuel build-up after farm abandonment) suggesting that fires were fuel-limited during the pre-1970s period. Climatic conditions were poorly related to pre-1970s fires and strongly related to post-1970s fires, suggesting that fire are currently less fuel limited and more drought-driven than before the 1970s. Thus, the fire regime shift implies also a shift in the main driver for fire activity, and this has consequences in the global change agenda.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Andersen T, Carstensen J, Hernández-García E, Duarte CM (2009) Ecological thresholds and regime shifts: approaches to identification. Trends Ecol Evol 24(1):49–57

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baeza J, Santana VM, Pausas JG, Vallejo R (2011) Successional trends in standing dead biomass in Mediterranean Basin species Sci. J Veg Sci. doi:10.1111/j.1654-1103.2011.01262.x

  • Bonet A, Pausas JG (2007) Old field dynamics on the dry side of the Mediterranean Basin: patterns and processes in semiarid SE Spain. In: Cramer VA, Hobbs RJ (eds) Old fields: dynamics and restoration of abandoned farmland. Island, Washington, DC, pp 247–264

  • Brock W, Carpenter S (2010) Interacting regime shifts in ecosystems: implication for early warnings. Ecol Monogr 80:353–367. doi:10.1890/09-1824

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown RL, Durbin J, Evans JM (1975) Techniques for testing the constancy of regression relationships over time (with discussion). J R Stat Soc 37:149–192

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown TJ, Hall BL, Westerling AL (2004) The impact of twenty-first century climate change on wildland fire danger in the Western United States: an applications perspective. Clim Change 62(1):365–388

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Covington WW, Moore MM (1994) Southwestern ponderosa forest structure: changes since Euro-American settlement. J For 92(1):39–47

    Google Scholar 

  • Delcourt HR, Delcourt PA (1997) Pre-Columbian Native American use of fire on southern Appalachian landscapes. Conserv Biol 11(4):1010–1014

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Esteban-Parra MJ, Pozo-Vázquez D, Rodrigo FS, Castro-Díez Y (2003) Temperature and precipitation variability and trends in northern Spain in the context of the Iberian peninsula climate. In: Bolle HJ (ed) Mediterranean climate: variability and trends. Springer, Berlin, pp 259–276

    Google Scholar 

  • Fernández-Muñoz S (1999) Cambio y continuidad en los incendios forestales: estudio de casos en las provincias de Soria y Valencia. In: Aranque E (ed) Incendios históricos. Una aproximación multidisciplinar. Universidad Internacional de Andalucía, pp 111–148

  • Fulé PZ, Ribas M, Gutiérrez E, Vallejo R, Kaye MW (2008) Forest structure and fire history in an old Pinus nigra forest, eastern spain. For Ecol Manag 255(3–4):1234–1242

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guyette RP, Muzika RM, Dey DC (2002) Dynamics of an anthropogenic fire regime. Ecosystems 5(5):472–486

    Google Scholar 

  • Keeley JE (2002) Native American impacts on fire regimes of the California coastal ranges. J Biogeogr 29:303–320

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keeley JE, Fotheringham CJ (2001) Historic fire regime in southern California shrublands. Conserv Biol 15(6):1536–1548

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keeley JE, Zedler PH (2009) Large, high intensity fire events in southern California shrublands: debunking the fine-grained age-patch model. Ecol Appl 19:69–94

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keeley JE, Fotheringham CJ, Morais M (1999) Reexamining fire suppression impacts on brushland fire regimes. Science 284(5421):1829–1832

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lebourgeois F, Granier A, Breda N (2001) Une analyse des changements climatiques régionaux en france entre 1956 et 1997. Réflexions en terme de conséquences pour les écosystems forestiers. Ann For Sci 58(7):733–754

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacNeill IB (1974) Tests for change of parameter at unknown times and distributions of some related functionals on Brownian motion. Ann Stat 2(5):950–962

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marlon JR, Bartlein PJ, Carcaillet C, Gavin DG, Harrison SP, Higuera PE, Joos F, Power MJ, Prentice IC (2008) Climate and human influences on global biomass burning over the past two millennia. Nature Geoscience 1(10):697–702

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Millán MM, Estrela MJ, Sanz MJ, Mantilla E, Martín M, Pastor F, Salvador R, Vallejo R, Alonso L, Gangoiti G (2005) Climatic feedbacks and desertification: the Mediterranean model. J Clim 18(5):684–701

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moritz MA (2003) Spatiotemporal analysis of controls on shrubland fire regimes: age dependency and fire hazard. Ecology 84(2):351–361

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ovaskainen O, Hanski I (2001) Spatially structured metapopulation models: global and local assessment of metapopulation capacity. Theor Popul Biol 60:281–302

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pausas JG (2004) Changes in fire and climate in the eastern Iberian peninsula (Mediterranean Basin). Clim Change 63(3):337–350

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pausas JG, Keeley JE (2009) A burning story: the role of fire in the history of life. Bioscience 59(7):593–601. doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.7.10

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pausas JG, Llovet J, Rodrigo A, Vallejo R (2008) Are wildfires a disaster in the Mediterranean Basin?—a review. Int J Wildland Fire 17(6):713–723

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pérez Cueva AJ (1994) Atlas climàtic de la Comunitat Valenciana (1961–1990). Generalitat Valenciana, Valencia

    Google Scholar 

  • Peters DPC, Pielke RA, Bestelmeyer BT, Allen CD, Munson-McGee S, Havstad KM (2004) Cross-scale interactions, nonlinearities, and forecasting catastrophic events. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101(42):15130–15135

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Piñol J, Terradas J, Lloret F (1998) Climate warming, wildfire hazard, and wildfire occurrence in coastal eastern Spain. Clim Change 38:345–357

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ploberger W, Kramer W (1992) The CUSUM test with OLS residuals. Econometrica 60(2):271–285

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Seijo F (2009) Who framed the forest fire? State framing and peasant counter-framing of anthropogenic forest fires in Spain since 1940. J Environ Policy Plan 11:103–128

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turner MG, Gardner RH (1991) Quantitative methods in landscape ecology. Ecological studies. Springer

  • With KA, Crist TO (1995) Critical thresholds in species’ responses to landscape structure. Ecology 76(8):2446–2459

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zeileis A, Leisch F, Hornik K, Kleiber C (2002) Strucchange: an R package for testing for structural change in linear regression models. J Stat Soft 7(2):1–38

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CIDE, CSIC, Apartado Oficial, 26270, Albal, Valencia, Spain

    Juli G. Pausas

  2. Departamento de Humanidades Historia, Geografía y Arte, Universidad Carlos III, Av. Universidad 22, Colmenarejo, 28250, Spain

    Santiago Fernández-Muñoz

Authors
  1. Juli G. Pausas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Santiago Fernández-Muñoz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Juli G. Pausas.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Pausas, J.G., Fernández-Muñoz, S. Fire regime changes in the Western Mediterranean Basin: from fuel-limited to drought-driven fire regime. Climatic Change 110, 215–226 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0060-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0060-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation