Forest fire occurrence, distribution and future risks in Arghakhanchi district, Nepal
Author(s): Satish Bhusal and Ram Asheshwar Mandal
Abstract: Forest fire has proved to be a major uncontrolled disaster which causes imbalances in ecosystem and endangers the biodiversity but the research related to this is very limited so far in Nepal. Thus, this study was objectively carried out to identify the occurrence and distribution of forest fire and its drivers and risk zone applying spatial analysis. MODIS hotspot satellite data from 2002 to 2018 and other variables were integrated using geo spatial technique. The topographic and land cover related data archived from International Center for Integrated Mountain Development and Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center from NASA official website. The forest fire point and burnt area related shape file archived from the MODIS data as data sources for this study. The layers of each variable were prepared and overlaid on it to assess the forest fire risk zone. Altogether 120 GPS points collected from field and 12 focus group discussion was done to find the fire risk zone. The collected data were analyzed using ArcGIS. The result shows those total 391 hotspots were recorded by MODIS satellite from 2002 to 2018. Out of this, the highest fire count was in Sitganga municipality with 284. Total 121 in forest fire occurrence was in 2016 but single event was recorded in 2002. It was about 2, 51, 722.31 ha area burnt between 2002 to 2018. The forest area close to settlement area and road less than 1000 m was more prone to the forest fire.
Fire occurrence was the highest 168 in broadleaved closed forest. The highest 77 fire incidents were recorded in southern aspect. The highest fire incidents was recorded at higher than 35 degree but very less number of fires occurred in slope less than 5%. Temperature range greater than 33 °C is more prone to fire, which recorded about 106 in number. It showed that, Sitganga and Sharada municipality are at the highest risk of fire zone. This study will help to establish the baseline data for monitoring the forest fire.
Pages: 10-20 | Views: 751 | Downloads: 116Download Full Article: Click HereHow to cite this article:
Satish Bhusal, Ram Asheshwar Mandal. Forest fire occurrence, distribution and future risks in Arghakhanchi district, Nepal. Int J Geogr Geol Environ 2020;2(1):10-20.
