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Forest fires and their effect on carbon emissions
Why is it in News?
- Study based on remote sensing models had published which considers burn indices for demarketing forest fire scars.
Study on Forest fires:
- During 2003–2017, a total of 5,20,861 active forest fire events were detected in India.
- According to Forest Survey of India, over 54% of the forest cover in India is exposed to occasional fire.
- Healthy vegetation shows high reflectance in near-infrared spectrum while burnt part show low reflectance.
- Healthy vegetation show low reflectance in shortwave infrared spectrum while burnt region shows high reflectance.
- States of northeast India, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are the most fire-prone in India.
- There is a sharp increase of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and ozone during high fire activity periods.
- The occurrence of high fire intensity at the low altitude Himalayan hilly regions may be due to the plant species (pine trees) in the area and proximity to villages.
- The sharp increase in average and maximum air temperature, decline in precipitation, change in land-use patterns have caused the increased incidences of forest fires.