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Ecohydrology

When will the jungle burn?

Nature Climate Change volume 7, pages 390–391 (2017)Cite this article

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Fire weather indices are unsuited to forecast fire in tropical rainforests. Now research shows the area burnt across Borneo is related to drought-depleted water tables, presenting the opportunity to predict fire danger in these environments.

Tropical rainforests are the least fire-prone ecosystems on Earth, and should therefore be in no need of fire management. Deforestation and climate change, however, have dramatically increased the frequency of wildfires, meaning rainforests now require protection and management from burning, often achieved through fire-risk forecasting. Now, writing in Nature Climate Change, Muh Taufik and colleagues1 report that a simple model of groundwater dynamics is able to predict the area of tropical rainforest burnt in Borneo. This research illuminates how climate change increases rainforest vulnerability to burning in a way that can be applied to predict and manage wildfire in these environments.

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Figure 1: A conceptual model of hydrological drought and fire in tropical rainforests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. David Bowman is at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia,

    David Bowman

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  1. David Bowman
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Correspondence to David Bowman.

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Bowman, D. When will the jungle burn?. Nature Clim Change 7, 390–391 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3284

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