CSP’s Miranda Gray and Brett Dickson will soon be publishing a paper in Ecological Applications. The paper, “A new model of landscape-scale fire connectivity applied to resource and fire management in the Sonoran Desert, USA,” looks at a probabilistic approach to predicting the location, timing, and effects of wildfire. This novel approach entailed developing a model based on electrical circuit theory to simulate fire connectivity. The study focused on endangered pronghorn antelope habitat and designated wilderness the lower Sonoran Desert of southwestern Arizona.
Model inputs included fuels, landscape properties, and winds; results were mapped to show fire likelihood and evaluated using historical data for burned areas. The model results indicated that fire was most likely in lower elevations and areas with lower slopes and topographic roughness, which include wilderness areas and pronghorn habitat.
Gray and Dickson have produced a valuable tool for wildfire management. Their model not only addresses key challenges associated with quantifying wildfire risk but it can be applied to other ecosystems, providing an important defense as changes in climate and land use threaten ecologically significant areas.
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