[M-IS01] Environmental, Socio-Economic and Climatic Changes in Northern Eurasia

[MIS01-08] Increasing Fuel Loads, Fire Hazard and Carbon Emissions From Fires in Central Siberia

*Elena Kukavskaya¹, Evgeny Shvetsov¹, Ludmila Buryak ^1,2,3, Pavel Groisman⁴ (1.V.N. Sukachev Institute of Forest of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences - separate subdivision of the FRC KSC SB RAS”, 660036 Akademgorodok 50/28, Krasnoyarsk, Russia, 2.The Branch of FBU VNIILM “Centre of Forest Pyrology”, 660062 Krupskaya 42, Krasnoyarsk, Russia, 3.Reshetnev Siberian State University of Science and Technology, 660037 Krasnoyarsky Rabochiy Prospect 31, Krasnoyarsk, Russia, 4.North Carolina State University at NOAA National Center for Environmental Information, Asheville, NC 28801, USA)

Keywords:boreal forests, Angara region, clearcuts, surface and ground fuels, fuel load maps

The Angara region located in the southern taiga of central Siberia is one of the most disturbed regions by both fire and logging in Russia. We have developed surface and ground fuel loads maps by integrating satellite and ground-based data with respect to the forest-growing conditions and the disturbance of the territory by anthropogenic and natural factors (fires, loggings). We found that from 2001 to 2020 fuel loads increased by 8% in the study region mainly due to a large amount of down woody debris accumulated at clearcuts and burned sites. The expansion of the disturbed areas in the Angara region resulted in increase of natural fire hazard. Over the past 20 years, we found significant increasing trends of the mean carbon emissions from fires per unit area (p<0.005) and decadal means (p<0.1). In addition, there are significant trends of the increase of carbon emissions at logged sites (p<0.005), as well as emissions released by severe fires (p<0.005) and by fires in wetter dark coniferous (spruce, p<0.005 and Siberian pine, p<0.025) forests. This indicates deeper burning and loss of legacy carbon that impact on carbon cycle resulting in climate feedbacks. The research was supported by RSF grant # 23-17-20007.