Tropical Fire Ecology: Climate Change, Land Use and Ecosystem Dynamics (Springer Praxis Books)
Language: English
Pages: 682
ISBN: 3540773800
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Fire Ecology of Tropical Ecosystems gives an extensive explanation of historic and current fire situations in the tropics, describing the fire ecology of tropical ecosystems from around the globe. Eighteen groups of leading researchers explain the many different aspects and roles of fire in tropical ecosystems. Regional chapters address a set of common subjects including the causes of fire, typical fire behavior, and elements of the fire regime. In addition, they study the impacts of human land use, landscape fragmentation and climate change on the fire environment and the challenges of fire management in these ecosystems. The common set of topics provides consistency among the chapters and facilitates comprehensive understanding of fire’s place in tropical ecology. This cohesive book covers unique aspects of fire in each ecosystem and includes a discussion of common elements to enable comparisons and syntheses of fire effects in disparate tropical ecosystems. Current scientific literature is too fragmented: it hampers the understanding of tropical fire ecology and degrades all global studies of land cover change and global carbon emissions. Fire
Ecology of Tropical Ecosystems fills a large void in our current understanding of how fire affects terrestrial biota.
The book opens with a general explanation of fire in the tropics, giving the examples of Oazaca, Mexico in 1998 and Roraima, Brazil in 1997-1998. It follows with the concepts and principles of wildland fire, including heat transfer, fire behavior, fuels, weather and climate.
Chapters 3-19 cover the implications of fire in Asia, Africa, Australia, Central and South America, Pacifica and Pantropical, addressing the causes, fire behavior, severity, fire and land use, fire and landscapes (fragmentation and connectivity), fire, climate and climate change, fire regimes (why frequency matters), issues for fire management and regional issues of specific importance or interest. An overview at the end of the book considers the global fire regime conditions, threats, and opportunities for fire management in the tropics.
Geopolitics and the Green Revolution: Wheat, Genes, and the Cold War
Tropical Forest Ecology: A View from Barro Colorado Island
®re. Policy makers have long criticized the ®res for reducing tree cover and contributing to land degradation, raising the specter of deserti®cation in Mali and deforestation in Madagascar. As a result, colonial and independent governments have periodically tried to eradicateÐor at least minimizeÐlandscape burning. These eorts wax and wane with the political context, with drought cycles, and with periods of international concern. Government ®re restrictions are frequently perceived by rural.
Health impacts caused by ®res go beyond mortality statistics. A survey of the general populace in smoke-aected regions of Indonesia showed that virtually 100% had some negative symptom from the smoke and 90% had respiratory diculties. In some of the most severely aected regions, the incidence of pneumonia cases was 33 times above normal levels. Even in less smoke-impacted regions, cases of asthma and pneumonia increased by 50%. In addition, cases of bronchitis, acute laryngitis, and.
Al., 2003). The fact that mammals, birds, and many mobile animals are capable of escaping the ¯ames does not mean that they will necessarily live (Barlow et al., this book). Certain aspects of individual species' ecologies make many vulnerable to indirect ®re eects. These factors include diet, territoriality, and shelter requirements (Kinnaird and O'Brien, 1998). Escaping the ®re is only the ®rst step in survival. If habitat changes mean that the displaced animals can no longer ®nd food, 8.
Global warming (IPCC, 2001). The production of charcoal for thermoelectric plants is one of the main sources of energy that have a major local impact on ®re frequency and intensity. Charcoal production in eastern Amazonia, for instance, is associated with logging and the spread of forest ®res (Alencar et al., 2004). The expansion of soybean, sugar cane, palm oil, and other crops that can be used to produce both edible oils and biofuel also represent a threat to ®re regimes since they involve land.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 2 2 4 5 7 10 10 14 17 18 18 2 Fire and ®re ecology: Concepts and principles 2.1 Fire and combustion . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Heat transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1 Conduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.2 Convection . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.3 Radiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .