Biomass burning, land-cover change, and the hydrological cycle in Northern sub-Saharan Africa

Charles Ichoku; Jun Wang; Luke T Ellison; K Elena Willmot; Toshihisa Matsui; Amin K Dezfuli; Charles K Gatebe; Eric M Wilcox; Jejung Lee; Jimmy Adegoke; Churchill Okonkwo; John Bolten; Frederick S Policelli; Shahid Habib

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/095005

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Biomass burning, land-cover change, and the hydrological cycle in Northern sub-Saharan Africa

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Biomass burning, land-cover change, and the hydrological cycle in Northern sub-Saharan Africa

Charles Ichoku, Jun Wang, Luke T Ellison, K Elena Willmot, Toshihisa Matsui, Amin K Dezfuli, Charles K Gatebe, Eric M Wilcox, Jejung Lee, Jimmy Adegoke, …

Environmental research letters, Vol.11(9), p.95005

09/14/2016

DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/095005

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Abstract

The Northern Sub-Saharan African (NSSA) region, which accounts for 20%-25% of the global carbon emissions from biomass burning, also suffers from frequent drought episodes and other disruptions to the hydrological cycle whose adverse societal impacts have been widely reported during the last several decades. This paper presents a conceptual framework of the NSSA regional climate system components that may be linked to biomass burning, as well as detailed analyses of a variety of satellite data for 2001-2014 in conjunction with relevant model-assimilated variables. Satellite fire detections in NSSA show that the vast majority (>75%) occurs in the savanna and woody savanna land-cover types. Starting in the 2006-2007 burning season through the end of the analyzed data in 2014, peak burning activity showed a net decrease of 2-7%/yr in different parts of NSSA, especially in the savanna regions. However, fire distribution shows appreciable coincidence with land-cover change. Although there is variable mutual exchange of different land cover types, during 2003-2013, cropland increased at an estimated rate of 0.28%/yr of the total NSSA land area, with most of it (0.18%/yr) coming from savanna. During the last decade, conversion to croplands increased in some areas classified as forests and wetlands, posing a threat to these vital and vulnerable ecosystems. Seasonal peak burning is anti-correlated with annual water-cycle indicators such as precipitation, soil moisture, vegetation greenness, and evapotranspiration, except in humid West Africa (5°-10° latitude), where this anti-correlation occurs exclusively in the dry season and burning virtually stops when monthly mean precipitation reaches 4 mm d−1. These results provide observational evidence of changes in land-cover and hydrological variables that are consistent with feedbacks from biomass burning in NSSA, and encourage more synergistic modeling and observational studies that can elaborate this feedback mechanism.

Precipitation

Sub-Saharan Africa

biomass burning

fire

land cover change

water cycle

Details

Title: Subtitle: Biomass burning, land-cover change, and the hydrological cycle in Northern sub-Saharan Africa
Creators: Charles Ichoku - Earth Sciences Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA
Jun Wang - Current address: Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, and Dept. of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, University of Iowa, USA
Luke T Ellison - Science Systems and Applications Inc., Lanham, MD, USA
K Elena Willmot - Vanderbilt University , Nashville, TN, USA
Toshihisa Matsui - University of Maryland Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC), College Park, MD, USA
Amin K Dezfuli - Universities Space Research Association (USRA) , Columbia, MD, USA
Charles K Gatebe - Universities Space Research Association (USRA) , Columbia, MD, USA
Eric M Wilcox - Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV, USA
Jejung Lee - University of Missouri , Kansas City, MO, USA
Jimmy Adegoke - University of Missouri , Kansas City, MO, USA
Churchill Okonkwo - Howard University Beltsville Center for Climate System Observation, Washington, DC, USA
John Bolten - Earth Sciences Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA
Frederick S Policelli - Earth Sciences Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA
Shahid Habib - Earth Sciences Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Environmental research letters, Vol.11(9), p.95005
DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/095005
ISSN: 1748-9318
eISSN: 1748-9326
Publisher: IOP Publishing
Number of pages: 13
Grant note: ROSES Inter-disciplinary Studies (IDS) / National Aeronautics and Space Administration (http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000104)
Language: English
Date published: 09/14/2016
Academic Unit: Civil and Environmental Engineering; Physics and Astronomy; Chemical and Biochemical Engineering
Record Identifier: 9984104910002771

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