Publications

Khan, MA; Gupta, A; Sharma, P; Roy, A (2024). Investigation of wildfire risk and its mapping using GIS-integrated AHP method: a case study over Hoshangabad Forest Division in Central India. ENVIRONMENT DEVELOPMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY.

Abstract
Increasing wildfire risk is a major menace to the subtropical biodiversity. However, regional plan may not oblige the local management in wildfire prevention in a locality where people are majorly depending on forest resource and the area undergoes significant human encroachment. Addressing that, the current study focuses one such area, Hoshangabad Forest Division (HFD), located in Central India, where wildfires have damaged the local biodiversity and surrounding socio-economic activities in previous years. While several studies found alarming increase in wildfires across different regions in India, this study found a non-significant increasing trend (slope = similar to 1 incidence/year) of MODIS active fire points over HFD area. Positive and significant spatial autocorrelation among the fire locations was found (Moron's I = 0.11), which indicates that fire often ignite over few specific places and spread to neighboring areas. Using Getis-Ord Gi statistics, four significant hotspots were distinguished, where 47% of total fire occurrences had occurred and the remaining were observed scattered across HFD. To assess wildfire risk within this locality, Analytical Hierarchical Process was used, where eight physical and six socio-economic factors were integrated in GIS environment. The model achieved a ROC-AUC score of 0.76 while validated with wildfire records from the MODIS. 32 and 28% of HFD area were found under high and very high-risk, respectively, where 78% of wildfire incidents had occurred during 2001-2022. Additionally, specific areas within HFD (western, central west, and south-western areas) are identified as facing higher risks of wildfires. This study shows that wildfire risk assessment at local-scale may differ what observed a regional scale and provide a promenade for area-specific wildfire prevention plan. It also suggests enhanced monitoring near forest edges, immediate action to protect teak trees, and prescribed fire management to reduce dry fuel in forests and roadsides. Thus, the study provides valuable insights into wildfire management and contributes to more specialized research and methodological advancement in this field.

DOI:
10.1007/s10668-024-05225-w

ISSN:
1573-2975