13–17 Feb 2023
Faculty of Geoscience and Geography
Europe/Zurich timezone

Using past analogues to understand role of fire and climate change in Central Indian forests

15 Feb 2023, 09:35
15m
MN09 (Faculty of Geoscience and Geography)

MN09

Faculty of Geoscience and Geography

Göttingen, Germany
Online short talk Fire-vegetation interactions (Oral) Data-based perspectives, problems, solutions

Speaker

Krishna Pavan Kumar Komanduri (Department of Environmental Studies, Ashoka University, Sonipat, India.)

Description

The nature of the relationship between fire and climate change is yet to be fully understood, especially in arid ecosystems. Our current scientific understanding states that higher the length, frequency, and severity of a dry season, higher the chances of biomass burning, further increasing the likelihood of warm and dry periods that are already projected in the near future. The degree of fire–aridity coupling, however, varies across ecosystems around the world, underlining the importance of investigating the role of fires in a regional context and its implications on forest ecosystems. Here, we bring a case study from the central part of the Indian Subcontinent, where fires, despite being a pressing social-ecological issue, are seriously understudied. As WWF attests, dry deciduous forests of Central India spread across 1,43,551 km2, host the country's most Protected Areas (including tiger reserves), while supporting the livelihoods of millions. Over the last few decades, it is observed that nearly 10,000 km2 of Central Indian forests burn each year, at a frequency that has been detrimental to biomass and species diversity with social-ecological implications. The Forest Departments in India have been investing significant resources in managing fires - often restricting them -, instigating conflicts with local communities relying on low-frequency fires on agricultural lands close to PAs. We argue that understanding the long term fire regimes is imperative in identifying a “natural” fire regime in the Central Indian forests, i.e., the threshold of fire frequency and intensity that would not alter the ecosystem, rather aid in forest fire management through inclusive means. Drawing upon new, high-resolution multi-proxy (pollen, charcoal, carbon isotopes) paleo-records merged with spatially explicit ecosystem modelling (plant fire–resistance traits), we untangle the impacts of fire–climate coupling on forest species composition in Central India. A combined proxy-modelling approach will help unravel the dynamics of species composition and environmental factors including fires, precipitation and temperature changes in the region. Our efforts will, in turn, bring empirical evidence for ecosystem-specific policy implications, better equipping Central Indian landscapes against adversities associated with climate extremities. Our work is supported by Government of India SERB-Power Grant No.SPG/2021/000860.

Charuta Kulkarni (Link: https://twitter.com/CharutaKul)
Meghna Agarwala (Link: https://twitter.com/Megs59801921)
LEACHS Lab, Ashoka University (Link: https://www.ashoka.edu.in/leachs-lab-research-areas/)

Primary author

Krishna Pavan Kumar Komanduri (Department of Environmental Studies, Ashoka University, Sonipat, India.)

Co-authors

Dr Charuta Kulkarni (Independent Researcher) Dr Meghna Agarwala (Department of Environmental Studies, Ashoka University, Sonipat, India.)

Presentation materials

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