Wildland Fire in Ecosystems

Wildland Fire in Ecosystems
Author: David V. Sandberg
Publisher:
Total Pages: 88
Release: 2003
Genre: Air quality
ISBN:

This state-of-knowledge review about the effects of fire on air quality can assist land, fire, and air resource managers with fire and smoke planning, and their efforts to explain to others the science behind fire-related program policies and practices to improve air quality. Chapter topics include air quality regulations and fire; characterization of emissions from fire; the transport, dispersion, and modeling of fire emissions; atmospheric and plume chemistry; air quality impacts of fire; social consequences of air quality impacts; and recommendations for future research.

Implications of the California Wildfires for Health, Communities, and Preparedness

Implications of the California Wildfires for Health, Communities, and Preparedness
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2020-08-31
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309499909

California and other wildfire-prone western states have experienced a substantial increase in the number and intensity of wildfires in recent years. Wildlands and climate experts expect these trends to continue and quite likely to worsen in coming years. Wildfires and other disasters can be particularly devastating for vulnerable communities. Members of these communities tend to experience worse health outcomes from disasters, have fewer resources for responding and rebuilding, and receive less assistance from state, local, and federal agencies. Because burning wood releases particulate matter and other toxicants, the health effects of wildfires extend well beyond burns. In addition, deposition of toxicants in soil and water can result in chronic as well as acute exposures. On June 4-5, 2019, four different entities within the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a workshop titled Implications of the California Wildfires for Health, Communities, and Preparedness at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at the University of California, Davis. The workshop explored the population health, environmental health, emergency preparedness, and health equity consequences of increasingly strong and numerous wildfires, particularly in California. This publication is a summary of the presentations and discussion of the workshop.

Earth Observation of Wildland Fires in Mediterranean Ecosystems

Earth Observation of Wildland Fires in Mediterranean Ecosystems
Author: Emilio Chuvieco
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2009-09-25
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3642017541

Wildland fires are becoming one of the most critical environmental factors affecting a wide range of ecosystems worldwide. In Mediterranean ecosystems (including also South-Africa, California, parts of Chile and Australia), wildland fires are recurrent phenomena every summer, following the seasonal drought. As a result of changes in traditional land use practices, and the impact of recent climate warming, fires have more negative impacts in the last years, threatening lives, socio-economic and ecological values. The book describes the ecological context of fires in the Mediterranean ecosystems, and provides methods to observe fire danger conditions and fire impacts using Earth Observation and Geographic Information System technologies.

Wildland Fires and Air Pollution

Wildland Fires and Air Pollution
Author: Andrzej Bytnerowicz
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 688
Release: 2009
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0080556094

Wildland fires are one of the most devastating and terrifying forces of nature. While their effects are mostly destructive they also help with regeneration of forests and other ecosystems. Low-intensity fires clear accumulating biomass reducing risk of catastrophic crown fires and can be used as an effective management tool. This book presents current understanding of wildland fires and air quality as well as their effects on human health, forests and other ecosystems. in the first section of the book the basics of wildland fires and resulting emissions are presented from the perspective of changing global climate, air quality impairment and effects on environmental and human health and security. in the second section, effects of wildland fires on air quality, visibility and human health in various regions of the Earth are discussed. The third section of the book deals with complex issues of the ecological impacts of fires and air pollution in forests and chaparral in North America. The fourth section discusses various management issues facing land and fire managers which are related to wildfires, use of prescribed fires, and air quality. This section also presents various modeling systems used for describing fire dangers and behavior as well as smoke and air pollution predictions applied in the risk assessment analysis. The book concludes with a series of expert recommendations for wildland fire and atmospheric research.

Air Quality in Cities

Air Quality in Cities
Author: Nicolas Moussiopoulos
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2013-11-11
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3662052172

Urban areas are major sources of air pollution. Pollutant emissions affecting air quality in cities are considered to have adverse consequences for human health. Public and government concern about environmental issues arising from urban air pollution has increased over the last decades. The urban air pollution problem is widespread throughout the world and it is important to find ways of eliminating or at least reducing the risks for human health. The fundamentals of the physical and chemical processes occurring during air pollutant transport in the atmosphere are nowadays understood to a large extent. In particular, modelling of such processes has experienced a remarkable growth in the last decades. Monitoring capabilities have also improved markedly in the most urban areas around the world. However, neither modelling nor monitoring can solve urban air pollution problems, as they are only a first step in improving useful information for future regulations. The defining of efficient control strategies can not be achieved without a clear knowledge of the complete pollution process, i.e. emission, atmospheric transport and transformation, and deposition at the receptor. Improving our ability to establish valid urban scale source-receptor relation ships has been the objective of SA TURN, one of the 14 subprojects of EURO TRAC-2. Similar to the other subprojects of this co-ordinated environmental pro ject within the EUREKA initiative, SA TURN brought together international groups of scientists to work on problems directly related to atmospheric chemistry and physics. The present volume summarises the scientific results of SATURN.

Firestorm

Firestorm
Author: Edward Struzik
Publisher: Island Press
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2017-10-05
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1610918185

"Frightening...Firestorm comes alive when Struzik discusses the work of offbeat scientists." —New York Times Book Review "Comprehensive and compelling." —Booklist "A powerful message." —Kirkus "Should be required reading." —Library Journal For two months in the spring of 2016, the world watched as wildfire ravaged the Canadian town of Fort McMurray. Firefighters named the fire “the Beast.” It acted like a mythical animal, alive with destructive energy, and they hoped never to see anything like it again. Yet it’s not a stretch to imagine we will all soon live in a world in which fires like the Beast are commonplace. A glance at international headlines shows a remarkable increase in higher temperatures, stronger winds, and drier lands– a trifecta for igniting wildfires like we’ve rarely seen before. This change is particularly noticeable in the northern forests of the United States and Canada. These forests require fire to maintain healthy ecosystems, but as the human population grows, and as changes in climate, animal and insect species, and disease cause further destabilization, wildfires have turned into a potentially uncontrollable threat to human lives and livelihoods. Our understanding of the role fire plays in healthy forests has come a long way in the past century. Despite this, we are not prepared to deal with an escalation of fire during periods of intense drought and shorter winters, earlier springs, potentially more lightning strikes and hotter summers. There is too much fuel on the ground, too many people and assets to protect, and no plan in place to deal with these challenges. In Firestorm, journalist Edward Struzik visits scorched earth from Alaska to Maine, and introduces the scientists, firefighters, and resource managers making the case for a radically different approach to managing wildfire in the 21st century. Wildfires can no longer be treated as avoidable events because the risk and dangers are becoming too great and costly. Struzik weaves a heart-pumping narrative of science, economics, politics, and human determination and points to the ways that we, and the wilder inhabitants of the forests around our cities and towns, might yet flourish in an age of growing megafires.

Particulate Matter Science for Policy Makers

Particulate Matter Science for Policy Makers
Author: Peter H. McMurry
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 652
Release: 2004-11-29
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9780521842877

Particulate Matter Science for Policy Makers: A NARSTO Assessment was commissioned by NARSTO, a cooperative public-private sector organization of Canada, Mexico and the United States. It is a concise and comprehensive discussion of the current understanding by atmospheric scientists of airborne particulate matter (PM). Its goal is to provide policy makers who implement air-quality standards with this relevant and needed scientific information. The primary audience for this volume will be regulators, scientists, and members of industry, all of whom have a stake in effective PM management. It will also inform exposure and health scientists, who investigate causal hypotheses of health impacts, characterize exposure, and conduct epidemiological and toxicological studies.

Fire in California's Ecosystems

Fire in California's Ecosystems
Author: Jan W. van Wagtendonk
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 567
Release: 2018-06-08
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0520961919

Fire in California’s Ecosystems describes fire in detail—both as an integral natural process in the California landscape and as a growing threat to urban and suburban developments in the state. Written by many of the foremost authorities on the subject, this comprehensive volume is an ideal authoritative reference tool and the foremost synthesis of knowledge on the science, ecology, and management of fire in California. Part One introduces the basics of fire ecology, including overviews of historical fires, vegetation, climate, weather, fire as a physical and ecological process, and fire regimes, and reviews the interactions between fire and the physical, plant, and animal components of the environment. Part Two explores the history and ecology of fire in each of California's nine bioregions. Part Three examines fire management in California during Native American and post-Euro-American settlement and also current issues related to fire policy such as fuel management, watershed management, air quality, invasive plant species, at-risk species, climate change, social dynamics, and the future of fire management. This edition includes critical scientific and management updates and four new chapters on fire weather, fire regimes, climate change, and social dynamics.

A Fire Upon The Deep

A Fire Upon The Deep
Author: Vernor Vinge
Publisher: Tor Science Fiction
Total Pages: 626
Release: 2010-04-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1429981989

Now with a new introduction for the Tor Essentials line, A Fire Upon the Deep is sure to bring a new generation of SF fans to Vinge's award-winning works. A Hugo Award-winning Novel! “Vinge is one of the best visionary writers of SF today.”-David Brin Thousands of years in the future, humanity is no longer alone in a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures, and technology, can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence. Fleeing this galactic threat, Ravna crash lands on a strange world with a ship-hold full of cryogenically frozen children, the only survivors from a destroyed space-lab. They are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. Tor books by Vernor Vinge Zones of Thought Series A Fire Upon The Deep A Deepness In The Sky The Children of The Sky Realtime/Bobble Series The Peace War Marooned in Realtime Other Novels The Witling Tatja Grimm's World Rainbows End Collections Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge True Names At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.