FOREST FIRE RISK FORECAST FOR THE STATE OF SANTA CATARINA DUE TO CLIMATE CHANGES

Abstract

Forest plays a fundamental role in the environmental balance, mainly in the regulation of the climate, main variable that interferes in the propagation of fire in a forest fire. Climate change is caused by astronomic, natural and anthropogenic factors, the latter being primarily responsible for the change in the fire regime. There is a projection that there will be climate changes over the next 100 years, which will result in an impact on forest ecosystems. Therefore, this study aimed to was to determine, by decade, the Forest Fire Risk Zone Mapping (FFRZM) for the state of Santa Catarina by considering the average of two scenarios for the increase of the temperature of the Earth until 2100 (1 °C for the best-case scenario and 2.2 ºC for the worst-case scenario) that were foreseen by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2013. For this purpose, eight variables classified according to fire risk and integrated in a weighting model were used. The results showed that, for both scenarios, there will be an increase of 11.48% in the best-case scenario and 10.83% in the worst-case scenario in the extreme risk class from 2010 to 2100. For the low risk one, we estimate that there will be an increase of 8.13% in the best-case scenario and 11.62% in the worst-case scenario. The study reveals that if there is an increase in the temperature of the Earth, there may be an increase in the number of forest fire occurrences in the state of Santa Catarina for both scenarios. Thus, it is necessary a greater action on the prevention and combat in the areas defined as extreme risk.