The global wildland-urban interface and wildfires near people
Franz Schug, University of Wisconsin - Madison, fschug@wisc.edu (Presenter)
Avi Bar-Massada, University of Haifa at Oranim, avi-b@sci.haifa.ac.il
Amanda R Carlson, USGS, arcarlson@usgs.gov
Heather Cox, University of Wisconsin - Madison, hrcox@wisc.edu
Todd J. Hawbaker, USGS, tjhawbaker@usgs.gov
David Helmers, University of Wisconsin - Madison, helmers@wisc.edu
Patrick Hostert, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, patrick.hostert@geo.hu-berlin.de
Dominik Kaim, Jagiellonian University, dominik.kaim@uj.edu.pl
Neda K Kasraee, University of Wisconsin - Madison, kasraee@wisc.edu
Sebastian Martinuzzi, University of Wisconsin - Madison, martinuzzi@wisc.edu
Miranda H Mockrin, US Forest Service, miranda.h.mockrin@usda.gov
Kira A Pfoch, University of Wisconsin - Madison, pfoch@wisc.edu
Volker Radeloff, University of Wisconsin-Madison, radeloff@wisc.edu
The wildland-urban interface (WUI) is where buildings and wildland vegetation intermingle or approach each other. It is where human-environmental conflicts are concentrated, for example, biodiversity loss, habitat fragmentation, or an increased spreading risk of zoonotic diseases. The most prominent hazard in the WUI, however, is wildfire. While the WUI is well-studied in North America, Europe and Australia, focusing on areas with a history of disastrous wildfires, a global analysis of the WUI and its exposure to wildfire is lacking. Here we present a global map of the WUI at 10-m resolution. We show that the WUI occurs on all continents including in many previously undocumented WUI hotspots. The WUI covers only 4.7% of the Earth’s surface but is home to nearly half its population (3.3 billion). While >95% of all wildfire area during 2003-2020 was outside of the WUI, wildfire in the WUI still affected 300 million people, most of them in Africa and the Subtropical and Tropical Moist Forest Biome, where the WUI has not yet been documented. In most biomes, around 75% of all people who experienced wildfire lived within the WUI. Two thirds of these people live in landscapes dominated by forests, shrubland, or wetland. Countries with the highest population affected by wildfires include the DR Congo, Indonesia, China, and Brazil. The WUI occurs in countries across all income groups, but wildfire affects countries with lower income disproportionally. While high-income countries have 31% of the overall global WUI area, only 6% of all people affected by wildfire in the WUI globally live in these countries, compared to 24% of WUI area and 63% of people in low and lower middle income countries. Wildfire frequency and severity in the WUI will likely increase in the future due to both housing development and climate change. Thus, there is a need to understand housing and vegetation in the WUI and the social and natural processes that govern wildfire regimes.
Poster: Poster_Schug_3-43_170_35.pdf
Associated Project(s):
Poster Location ID: 3-43
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Poster Session 3
Session Date: Thu (May 11) 3:00-5:00 PM
CCE Program: LCLUC