Modeling Historical and Future Forest Fires in South Korea: The FLAM Optimization Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In the manuscript entitled “Modeling Historical and Future Forest Fires in South Korea: the FLAM Optimization Approach” the authors present an optimization of a process-based model (FLAM) and its application to modelling seasonal patterns of past and future fire frequency in South Korea. I see several weaknesses mainly related to the objectives, writing and structure of the paper. The authors do not justify the need of their study in the introduction. The objectives are not clear. The structure of the introduction, methodology and results sections need to be greatly improved. The important references that are key to understand the modelling approach are missing in many parts of the MS. I believe it would be better to explain the basics of the FLAM model in a separated section (within Methods) and then specify the particular application and improvement of the model in the present study for South Korea. The results and discussion sections are unclear. For example, the section “Simulation of the Historical Forest Fire Events” should be the main point of the Results, together with what is shown in Figures 15 and 16 (with fire future projections) that are wrongly placed in the Discussion section. Finally, I do not see the innovation of this study in the topic of “remote sensing”. Therefore, I see the paper more suitable for a computation or modeling- related journal.

Major comments:

In the Abstract the burned area projection results under climate change should be briefly mentioned.

Page 2. L47: Define the Mid-Latitude Region (MLR)

Page 2 L52: In the sentence “highly populated urban areas separating the forested landscape”, do you mean wild forest areas or wildland-urban interface areas? Please clarify and give some numbers of the surface covered by each land-use.

P2 L71: In the sentence “large uncertainties caused by human mistake”, what do you mean with “human mistake”? Are they mainly arson or fires caused by negligence? It would be good to briefly describe the main causes of fire.

P 2 L72-81. This paragraph needs to be improved, since it is where the authors justify the need of their study. They talk about fire-specific process-based algorithms, but they do not mention examples (the reader needs to check the cited references to see which models they are referring to, and there are many in the literature). Please, explain this in the text. The authors also mention that “the most precise application of these algorithms was 25×25 km2”, but it’s not clear in which ones? Could you please be more specific? Next, they mention the need “to integrate the algorithms with remote sensing data” mentioning a study of drought prediction modelling. Could you please clarify these ideas and the relationship with the objective of the study?

P2 L82-84. This paragraph is also key to understand the objectives of the present study. The authors mention “IIASA’s wildFire cLimate impacts and Adaptation Model (FLAM)” but it is not explained. Besides they do not cite any studies using FLAM in this paragraph, nor examples, application etc. These should be clear for the readers that are not familiar with FLAM (see also my previous comment).

P2 L86-92: In the sentence “the FLAM development for South Korea includes” 1)…2)…is not clear for the reader if this is already done, or if these are actually the objectives of the present study. Please, be more specific and reorganize the ideas. For example, the first sentence of the Conclusions section summarizes better the main objective of the present study. In the abstract and results sections, future burned area projections are mentioned, therefore they should be also mentioned at the end of the introduction as specific objectives of the paper. In the objective number 3, what do you mean with “deeper look at the fire frequency”?

P3 L119. The authors explain the FLAM model but without citing any reference related to it. From the reference list one can infer that some papers cited have used FLAM, but this should be clearly cited here (not later as it is). Please, define IIASA. I think the explanation of the model should be moved to the Methods section, where the authors explain the main modules of the model. I believe it would be better to explain the basics of the FLAM model in a separated section (within Methods) and then specify the particular application and improvement of the model in the present study for South Korea.

P4 Figure 2. Please, give the main reference in which FLAM model was developed. As suggested in my previous comment, I would move this figure to the Methods sections. The figure needs to be improved and linked to the different parts/modules of the model as they are mentioned (named) in the text. I get lost when I try to understand the model modules and algorithms linked to this figure.

Page 4 Lines 141-143. These are the objectives of the study. Please reorganize and move them to the end of the introduction (see my previous comments on the introduction).

Pages 4 and 5. In sections 2.3.2 and 2.3.3 could you please mention the citation or the websites (i.e., Table A1) of the meteorological and fuel data?

Page 5 L163. Could you please further explain and justify the assumption of the model that each grid is fully occupied by one or two out of the six dominant tree species in South Korea?

Page5 L 186 In the Methods section it is difficult for the reader to follow the FLAM model structure (original), and the optimization and changes done for the Korean data. Please, reorganize this whole section.

Page 5. L187 The first paragraph of this section justifies the parametrization of the FLAM model when applied to S Korea. I think it would be better to explain in a separated section the basics of the FLAM model and then specify the application and improvement of the model in the present study (see my comment above).

Page 9 L 305. This sentence should be better justified, and the proper reference cited. The probability equations for integrating biophysical factors were originally designed on a 1,000km2 scale.

The Result sections includes many methodological issues that should be explained in the methods section. Results should focus on the research questions. The “Simulation of the Historical Forest Fire Events” should be the main point together to the results shown in Figures 15 and 16 (with future projections) that are wrongly placed in the Discussion section.

Minor comments: Lightening should be lightning (check the spelling along the manuscript).

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable comments.

We tried our best to reflect all of your feedback to the paper.

Here we attached the revision table with revised manuscript.

Please see reviewer 1 for your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Minor changes would enhance the quality of the paper. Please General and Specific Comments.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable comments.

We tried our best to reflect all of your feedback to the paper.

Here we attached the revision table with revised manuscript.

Please see reviewer 2 for your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

In general a good paper. However, the part of remote sensing data used for the model approach in this paper is quite small (i.e. one little paragraph). Hence, I feel it would fit better in a journal addressing more environmental modelling to analyse climate change effects or GIS topics. 

Nevertheless a few remarks to improve the paper:

Line 264: the citation of Lawson & Armitage is missing in the references. It should be cited in the text with a number according to the general citation rule applied in the paper.

Line 343 (Table 1). To ease reading a legend explaining the parameters is recommended.

Figure 11: the Legend is too small and cannot be read easily. Please enlarge.

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable comments.

We tried our best to reflect all of your feedback to the paper.

Here we attached the revision table with revised manuscript.

Please see reviewer 3 for your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors of the MS “Modeling Historical and Future Forest Fires in South Korea: the FLAM Optimization Approach” have significantly improved the structure of the introduction, methodology and results sections of the new version of the paper. However, there are some points and figures that need to be checked.

L57 In which region occurred 29% of fires? Did you mean that they occur at WUI? Please, clarify.

L74-76. Please clarify this whole paragraph, it is confusing.

Figure 2. I presume the Sections indicated in the figure correspond to the Sections of the paper where each part of the model are explained. Please, include this explanation in the Figure caption. If the different colors of the boxes have a meaning, these should also be explained in the caption.

Figure 16 is not cited in the text; it is related to Section 4.3. Please, correct this.

Figure 15 is shown and cited (in Section 4.4) after Figure 16 and this is an inaccuracy.

Please, clarify the order of the last two sections of the Results. I would talk about what is shown in Section 4.4.-Figure 15 first, and then talk about the future projections (i.e., what is shown in Section 4.3-Figure 16).

Author Response

Thanks to the reviewer's comment, we could greatly improve our manuscript.

Additional revision can be found at the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf