Amazon fires linked more to agricultural burns and deforestation than drought

A Brazilian study shows that the number of fires detected across the Amazon region between 2003 and 2020 was more influenced by uncontrolled human use of fire than by drought. . Burning of pastures and vegetation to prepare for deforestation, rather than extreme water shortages, was the main cause of fires most years, with numerous fires, according to researchers.

On average, meadows and other agricultural land account for 32% of the annual area burned in the Amazon, followed by 29% natural grasslands and 16% primary forest.

Of the nine countries with Amazonian rainforest regions, Brazil and Bolivia together account for most of the fires detected each year in the region, accounting for more than half and about one-third, respectively.

Most of the Amazon is in Brazil (63%), but lowland rainforest biomes also extend to Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, French Guiana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela, each accounting for 9% to 6.5%. I’m here. The total area is 6.67 million square kilometers.

A research paper was published in the special issue of Geoecology and Biogeography On the growing threat that fires pose to the world’s forests.

The authors are scientists from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE), National Disaster Monitoring and Early Warning Center (CEMADEN), and Maranhão State University (UEMA).

The number of fires in the Brazilian Amazon is on the rise again. According to INPE, the first nine months of 2022, especially his August and September, were the highest since 2010 when 102,409 fires were detected. At the same time, since 2019 biome deforestation has reached its highest level since 2009, exceeding 10,000 square kilometers per year. This trend continues, judging by the statistics available from DETER, INPE’s deforestation warning platform.

“The scientific literature on Amazon fires has tended to focus on the Brazilian part of the biome. Fire is used in agriculture to renew vegetation, mainly in pastures, especially in Brazil, but without proper fire management, fire is adjacent It concluded that there is an increased risk of fleeing into the forest and causing wildfires. Dr. Vinicius de Freitas Silveira Dr. Vinicius de Freitas Silveira Candidate for the Division of Earth Observation and Geoinformatics (DIOTG) at INPE and first author of the article.

For Luiz Eduardo Oliveira e Cruz de Aragão, head of DIOTG-INPE and last author of the article, the study is groundbreaking by covering all of the Amazon and nearly two decades of data. “By analyzing this long period, we were able to identify time series anomalies such as 2020. It shows that the use of fire is widespread,” he said.

Aragão is the leader of the Tropical Ecosystems and Environmental Sciences (TREES) Institute and a participant in the FAPESP Research Program on Global Climate Change (RPGCC).

As Aragão pointed out, 2020 is a “chronological anomaly.” The study found that in 2020, he was infamous following the 2019 Amazon fire season and also during a period when the COVID-19 pandemic was surging. weakened to

The total burned area of ​​the Amazon in 2020 is the largest since 2010, with active fires despite a much smaller area with unusually severe water deficits compared to the massive water deficits of 2015-2016. The burned area per year was the second highest in the time series. drought, the author writes.

Another important biome in Brazil, the Pantanal (the world’s largest wetland, covering 250,000 square kilometers, partly in Argentina and Paraguay), was also devastated by unprecedented fires in 2020. Average for 2020, according to an article published in July 2022. Besides Aragão, its authors include Liana Anderson, her penultimate author of the article that has gone up in flames on Amazon.

Similar to the rainforest, the study found that fires in the Pantanal are the result of increased fire-related human activity, with 70% in rural areas, 5% in indigenous reserves and 10% in protected areas. Occurred.

For Anderson, the key short-term actions needed to reduce the risk of forest fires in the Amazon are to eradicate illegal deforestation in the region and tackle land grabbing. “In parallel, training and dissemination of fire-free land management techniques is critical to minimizing the increased risk of large-scale fires. Both extreme climates lead to increased flammability,” she said.

Brazil’s state of Maranhão, located in the transition zone between the Amazon and the Cerrado, Brazil’s second largest biome, sees an 18% increase in fires from January to September compared to the first nine months of 2021 Did.

“As we noted in our article, recent fire activity in the region is closely linked to deforestation and is increasing due to weakening environmental management by both federal and state governments. said Celso Silva-Junior of Maranhão State University (UEMA). ) and his second author of the article.

impact

Fire, which adversely affects forest structure and dynamics, is one of the main types of disturbances responsible for Amazon degradation, primarily because it impairs the forest’s ability to capture carbon and release stored carbon. is.

Fires also harm the health of people living in communities by exacerbating air pollution and increasing hospitalizations for respiratory diseases. According to a report prepared by the Institute for Health Policy Research (IEPS) in partnership with the Institute for the Environment of the Amazon (IPAM) and Human Rights Watch, open burning associated with deforestation in the Amazon will reduce the number of people in need for treatment of respiratory diseases in 2019. He caused 2,195 hospitalizations. 49% are over her 60s and 21% are her infants up to 1 year old.

On August 19, 2019, despite the distance of 2,700 km from São Paulo, smoke pollution from the Amazon forest fires has already added to the pollution in the air and low clouds in the big city, turning São Paulo’s day into night. changed to Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas.

data

recently Geoecology and Biogeography In the article, the researchers describe an analysis of time series from 2003 to 2020 compiled from records of active fires and burned areas, cross-referenced these with annual data for land use and cover, and identified anomalous levels. of fire, drought and deforestation. We identify the spatial distribution of these anomalies in 2020 based on a 10 km x 10 km grid covering the entire Amazon region.

They found that Brazil alone accounted for an average of 73% of annual fire detections in the Amazon between 2003 and 2020, with Bolivia 14.5% and Peru 5.3%.

Dividing the annual active fires detected in each region of the Amazon by the total area of ​​the region, Bolivia has the highest density, with an average of 6 active fires per 100 square kilometers per year, followed by Brazil. It turns out that there are 3 more.

Brazil and Bolivia experienced more active fires in the 2000s, then declined, bottomed out in 2013-14, and then rose again.

Brazil accounted for 56% of the total area burned in the Amazon each year on average over the period, while Bolivia’s share was 33%. Venezuela and Colombia account for 4% each. Peru was her third-ranked region in terms of number of fires, but on average contributed only 0.63% of the total area burned annually.

Wetlands other than farmlands and pastures, natural grasslands, primary forests and flooded forests were the most frequently burned land use and cover types across the Amazon during this period, accounting for 32%, 29%, 16% and 13% respectively. I’m here. Percentage of annual average total burned area.

Agricultural land also accounts for the largest share of annual area burned in Brazil (48%) and Peru (51%). Primary forests were most burned in Ecuador (76%), non-flooded wetlands in French Guiana (46.5%), and natural grasslands in the rest of the Amazon region (>40%).

“Fire is used to prepare crops and pastures, but fire is dangerous not only to forests and their biodiversity, but also to the sustainability of agriculture itself,” Aragao said. is to develop strategic land use plans in all sectors of government and society with training and support to use more advanced technologies.”