@Article{DevisscherAndAraGalMal:2016:InWiRi,
               author = "Devisscher, Tahia and Anderson, Liana O. and Arag{\~a}o, Luiz 
                         Eduardo Oliveira e Cruz de and Galvan, Luis and Malhi, Yadvinder",
          affiliation = "{University of Oxford} and {University of Oxford} and {Instituto 
                         Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE)} and {Universidad Nacional 
                         Aut{\'o}noma de M{\'e}xico} and {University of Oxford}",
                title = "Increased wildfire risk driven by climate and development 
                         interactions in the bolivian Chiquitania, southern Amazonia",
              journal = "PLoS One",
                 year = "2016",
               volume = "11",
               number = "9",
                pages = "e0161323",
                month = "Sept.",
             abstract = "Wildfires are becoming increasingly dominant in tropical 
                         landscapes due to reinforcing feed-backs between land cover change 
                         and more severe dry conditions. This study focused on the Bolivian 
                         Chiquitania, a region located at the southern edge of Amazonia. 
                         The extensive, unique and well-conserved tropical dry forest in 
                         this region is susceptible to wildfires due to a marked 
                         seasonality. We used a novel approach to assess fire risk at the 
                         regional level driven by different development trajectories 
                         interacting with changing climatic conditions. Possible future 
                         risk scenarios were simulated using maximum entropy modelling with 
                         presence-only data, combining land cover, anthropogenic and 
                         climatic variables. We found that important determinants of fire 
                         risk in the region are distance to roads, recent deforestation and 
                         density of human settlements. Severely dry conditions alone 
                         increased the area of high fire risk by 69%, affecting all 
                         categories of land use and land cover. Interactions between 
                         extreme dry conditions and rapid frontier expansion further 
                         increased fire risk, resulting in potential biomass loss of 2.44 
                         +/- 0.8 Tg in high risk area, about 1.8 times higher than the 
                         estimates for the 2010 drought. These interactions showed 
                         particularly high fire risk in land used for 'extensive cattle 
                         ranching', 'agro-silvopastoral use' and 'intensive cattle ranching 
                         and agriculture'. These findings have serious implications for 
                         subsistence activities and the economy in the Chiquitania, which 
                         greatly depend on the forestry, agriculture and livestock sectors. 
                         Results are particularly concerning if considering the current 
                         development policies promoting frontier expansion. Departmental 
                         protected areas inhibited wildfires when strategically established 
                         in areas of high risk, even under drought conditions. However, 
                         further research is needed to assess their effectiveness 
                         accounting for more specific contextual factors. This novel and 
                         simple modelling approach can inform fire and land management 
                         decisions in the Chiquitania and other tropical forest landscapes 
                         to better anticipate and manage large wildfires in the future.",
                  doi = "10.1371/journal.pone.0161323",
                  url = "http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161323",
                 issn = "1932-6203",
             language = "en",
           targetfile = "devisscher.PDF",
        urlaccessdate = "27 abr. 2024"
}