Assessment of lake-level fluctuation as an indicator of fire activity in boreal Canada. (December 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Chan, Xue Yan; Robinne, François-Nicolas; Parisien, Marc-André; Wang, Xianli; Fleming, Thomas; Flannigan, Mike D.
• Is Part Of: Ecological indicators. Volume 145(2023)
• Publication Date: 2022-12
• Subjects: Lake-level fluctuation -- Area burned -- Tidyhydat -- Wildfire activity -- Water Survey of Canada; Environmental monitoring -- Periodicals; Environmental management -- Periodicals; Environmental impact analysis -- Periodicals; Environmental risk assessment -- Periodicals; Sustainable development -- Periodicals; 333.71405
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.109611
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1470-160X

Abstract

Highlights: Lake-level fluctuation (LLF) is significantly associated with regional area burned. The association is stronger in the Boreal Shield than in the Boreal Plain. The association is established via the linkage between LLF and fuel availability. Negative LLF reflects hot and dry fire-conducive conditions. LLF can be computed using ongoing near real-time, open-access data in Canada. Abstract: Fuel moisture content is a highly variable property that dictates the ignition and combustion potentials of wildfire fuels. The Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI) System—a subset of the established Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System—relies solely on weather observations to track fuel moisture and compute indices of fire potential. Ancillary environmental measures, such as lake levels in non-regulated lake systems, may integrate climatic and landscape factors that better reflect environmental moisture deficits and thereby complement the FWI System. Accordingly, we investigated whether inter-annual variation in lake levels has potential to serve as an indicator of regional fire activity using a quasi-binomial regression approach. This study combines annual measurements of fire activity, lake level, and other climatic variables from the Boreal Shield and Boreal Plain ecozones of Canada from 1980 to 2019 to determine whether variation in regional area burned can be explained by lake-level fluctuation, and whether this explanatory power differs by ecozone. Results indicated that lake-level fluctuation is a significant predictor of regional area burned for many lakes (28–48%). It often performs as well as or better than traditional fire-weather metrics (such as temperature and precipitation), and this relationship is stronger on the Boreal Shield compared to the Boreal Plain. Lake-level fluctuation provides information on fuel availability unaccounted for by traditional fire-weather metrics, suggesting that this variable could be added to the suite of environmental indicators of regional fire activity in Canada.