Long-term fire-vegetation change: data-based challenges

The largest forest fire in the modern history of the Czech Republic: a long-term perspective through charcoal records

15 Feb 2023, 10:05

15m

MN09 (Faculty of Geoscience and Geography)

Oral Data-based perspectives, problems, solutions Data-based perspectives, problems, solutions

Speaker

Dr Přemysl Bobek (Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences)

Description

A massive forest fire that affected 1,300 hectares of the Bohemian Switzerland National Park in 2022 has sparked debate about the increasing threat of wildfires to society and nature in the Czech Republic. The question arose, is this unprecedented event outside the historical range of variability of the fire regime in the area? Charcoal records have been collected from several sites, indicating that fires have been an integral part of the long-term evolution of the forest ecosystems here, and natural regeneration is likely to result in more fire-tolerant communities.