The Consequences of Climate Change in the Brazilian Western Amazon: A New Proposal for a Fire Risk Model in Rio Branco, Acre

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The idea for a new fire risk index specific for the amazon area, specially within Acre state, is indeed very interesting and the amount of data gathered is quite large. The results showed by the authors also seemed promising, although I believe that the text require major revision. My main critical comment is on the structure of the paper, lacking a cohesive structure and missing details of the formulation of the equations used to create the proposed fire risk. As an example: In the abstract, the objectives of the paper is stated as to "verify the link between climate change, changed in land use and increasing frequency of forest fires". However, the introduction states that the objective of the paper is to "propose a new fire risk index for the capital Rio Branco, in order to identify the risks for different uses and land covers in the municipality". Throughout the paper, it became clearer that the objective was not the fire index, but rather the impact of several variables in the fire occurrence in the Rio Branco area with the index being a by-product of the analyses. A clear definition of the objectives of the paper should help to create a thread leading the central theme of the article.

Although it is clear that the authors can write at a very high level of English,  structural changes in grammar based on a review from a native speaker would improve the readability of the manuscript. However, not being a native English speaker myself, the authors and editor are free to ignore this suggestion.

Author Response

Federal University of Acre

Rio Branco, Acre – Brazil

January 16^th, 2024

RESPONSE LETTER

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

We welcome and thank you for your valuable contributions, with your suggestions and requests for corrections that certainly qualify and give more consistency to our research. We present below the treatment given to each of the proposed changes for resubmission of the manuscript: “The consequences of climate change in the Brazilian Western Amazon: A new proposal for a fire risk model in Rio Branco, Acre ”. All changes to the text and point-by-point responses are in “red”.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The idea for a new fire risk index specific for the amazon area, specially within Acre state, is indeed very interesting and the amount of data gathered is quite large. The results showed by the authors also seemed promising, although I believe that the text require major revision. My main critical comment is on the structure of the paper, lacking a cohesive structure and missing details of the formulation of the equations used to create the proposed fire risk. As an example: In the abstract, the objectives of the paper is stated as to "verify the link between climate change, changed in land use and increasing frequency of forest fires". However, the introduction states that the objective of the paper is to "propose a new fire risk index for the capital Rio Branco, in order to identify the risks for different uses and land covers in the municipality". Throughout the paper, it became clearer that the objective was not the fire index, but rather the impact of several variables in the fire occurrence in the Rio Branco area with the index being a by-product of the analyses. A clear definition of the objectives of the paper should help to create a thread leading the central theme of the article.

Thank you for your valuable detailed analysis on our paper. We included more detailed information about our objective in the Introduction, about the methodology and more information about the equations used to obtain the new index, we cited the paper published in Brazil [13] Delgado, R.C.; Wanderley, H.S.; Pereira, M.G.; Almeida, A.Q.d.; Carvalho, D.C.d.; Lindemann, D.d.S.; Zonta, E.; Menezes, S.J.M.d.C.d.; Santos, G.L.d.; Santana, R.O.d.; Souza, R.S.d; Santos, O,A,Q,d. Assessment of a New Fire Risk Index for the Atlantic Forest, Brazil. Forests, 2022, 13, 1844.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Although it is clear that the authors can write at a very high level of English,  structural changes in grammar based on a review from a native speaker would improve the readability of the manuscript. However, not being a native English speaker myself, the authors and editor are free to ignore this suggestion.

Thank you for your analysis on this point. We corrected the text and revised the English again.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The importance of the article should be discussed in more detail in the introduction. The benefits of estimating fire risk should be considered in more detail. It would be useful to define the variables analyzed in relation to fire risk in more detail and to discuss the reasons for the potential relationships.

L15: It is thought that it would be more appropriate to use "fire number" instead of "fire foci" throughout the article.

L93: It would be better if the northern representations and fonts on the maps in the figure were the same and more distinct. The legend is not understood, the explanation must be made clearly.

L97: It should be write as "Observed meteorological data and fire data"

L100: In the analysis, it should be clearly stated which measurements of meteorological data were taken, daily averages, the minimum or maximim data as in temperature, or the 13.00 measurement as in relative humidity?

L116:  Obtaining the data should be stated fully and understandably. The basis of the deforestation data in the PRODES project is not fully understood. It is stated that deforestation is mapped through clear-cutting, but how accurate is it to take the areas of temporary and permanent crops harvested as deforestation? Because the amount of harvested products and whether the areas where cultivation or planting is done are exactly the areas deforested by clear-cutting are not stated. If not, the increase or decrease of the areas, especially for temporary crops, may vary depending on supply and demand. It may not be accurate to establish a direct relationship between this and deforestation.

L125: It would be useful to explain the short-term, medium (SSP2-4.5) and very high (SSP5-8.5) greenhouse gas emission scenarios in the text, even in one sentence.

L209: It would be more useful if the place names on the map could be given in a legible manner.

L222: An explanation of the values on the right side of the chart should also be given

L244: The texts in Figures 7, 8, 9 and others are written too small to be read, they should be grouped to make them legible.

L256: Since the graphs are very small and difficult to read, it would be more useful and understandable to give the data obtained as a result of the analyzes for each variable in the text.

L263: The texts in the figure are not readable at all and should be made clear.

L285: Ranges must be given to understand what the Z index means and what the given numbers mean.

L319, 329: There should be a space between numbers.

L382: The conclusions section should be considered and evaluated more comprehensively.

Author Response

Federal University of Acre

Rio Branco, Acre – Brazil

January 16^th, 2024

RESPONSE LETTER

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

We welcome and thank you for your valuable contributions, with your suggestions and requests for corrections that certainly qualify and give more consistency to our research. We present below the treatment given to each of the proposed changes for resubmission of the manuscript: “The consequences of climate change in the Brazilian Western Amazon: A new proposal for a fire risk model in Rio Branco, Acre ”. All changes to the text and point-by-point responses are in “red”.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The importance of the article should be discussed in more detail in the introduction. The benefits of estimating fire risk should be considered in more detail. It would be useful to define the variables analyzed in relation to fire risk in more detail and to discuss the reasons for the potential relationships.

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your analysis on this point. Our work involved numerous sources of information, not just fire models. We included more information regarding the importance of generating a new fire risk index in our objectives, as well as information from models that use meteorological data in other regions of the world. These are works that address the potential of important variables such as rainfall, air temperature, wind speed and relative air humidity and that also seek new methodologies and models for the short and long-term prevention of fire risks in various regions of the globe.

L15: It is thought that it would be more appropriate to use "fire number" instead of "fire foci" throughout the article.

Thanks again for this point. But “fire foci” is already commonly used in international literature.

L93: It would be better if the northern representations and fonts on the maps in the figure were the same and more distinct. The legend is not understood, the explanation must be made clearly.

Figure 1 has been changed. Thank you for this detailed analysis.

L97: It should be write as "Observed meteorological data and fire data"

It was modified.

L100: In the analysis, it should be clearly stated which measurements of meteorological data were taken, daily averages, the minimum or maximim data as in temperature, or the 13.00 measurement as in relative humidity?

Dear, thank you for your analysis. The data is on a daily scale and we inserted this information, regarding the relative humidity at 1 pm, it refers to the equation that estimates this variable for this time, we also inserted the methodology that addresses this issue in our paper [13], not being necessary in our understanding to repeat equations.

L116: Obtaining the data should be stated fully and understandably. The basis of the deforestation data in the PRODES project is not fully understood. It is stated that deforestation is mapped through clear-cutting, but how accurate is it to take the areas of temporary and permanent crops harvested as deforestation? Because the amount of harvested products and whether the areas where cultivation or planting is done are exactly the areas deforested by clear-cutting are not stated. If not, the increase or decrease of the areas, especially for temporary crops, may vary depending on supply and demand. It may not be accurate to establish a direct relationship between this and deforestation.

Dear, thank you for your analysis. Regarding PRODES, we added another paragraph in an attempt to better detail the monitoring carried out in the Amazon. Regarding agricultural crops, there is indeed a spatial-temporal dependence on the issue of deforestation as well; the Central-West and North regions of the country are great examples of this sad reality. The advancement of the agricultural frontier is one of the major concerns, planting systems are often carried out without respecting legislation and the Brazilian forestry code, in addition, soybean and sugar cane crops are crops that are in great demand expansion in the state of Acre, this is a concern, since even though they are crops that depend or not on economic demand in a given year, our investigation proved that these temporary crops did not grow randomly, but had exponential growth in the Brazilian Amazon Over the last “30 years”, this information has been very well discussed in our results. These are crops that are totally dependent on the soil and climate conditions that this part of the Amazon has been offering up until now. We therefore believe that by explaining the PRODES methodology and not raising these agricultural issues, the work would deviate greatly from our central idea, which was to think about the involvement of expansion agriculture as one of the fastest ways to illegal deforestation in these regions.

L125: It would be useful to explain the short-term, medium (SSP2-4.5) and very high (SSP5-8.5) greenhouse gas emission scenarios in the text, even in one sentence.

Thanks again for this question, we have inserted this information into our paper.

L209: It would be more useful if the place names on the map could be given in a legible manner.

Thank you again for this analysis, this map only represents the spatial distribution of fire foci, with no information on city names on this map and there is no need to enlarge the font to represent the same name as the city of Rio Branco studied and represented with higher resolution in Figure 1.

L222: An explanation of the values on the right side of the chart should also be given

It was modified.

L244: The texts in Figures 7, 8, 9 and others are written too small to be read, they should be grouped to make them legible.

We have improved the quality and re-edited/redone the mentioned fonts/captions/figures. Thank you for your analysis on this point.

L256: Since the graphs are very small and difficult to read, it would be more useful and understandable to give the data obtained as a result of the analyzes for each variable in the text.

Dear reviewer, we redid the figures. We removed Figure 12 as a suggestion and left only the information in the text. Thank you for this point again in our paper.

L263: The texts in the figure are not readable at all and should be made clear.

The Figure has been modified and the font enlarged.

L285: Ranges must be given to understand what the Z index means and what the given numbers mean.

We have inserted in the text the tested values for 5% and 10%, other information on the MK analysis can be found in the paper's methodology.

L319, 329: There should be a space between numbers.

It has been inserted.

L382: The conclusions section should be considered and evaluated more comprehensively.

We have inserted a more comprehensive paragraph.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf