Coupled Climate, Wildfire, and Land Use Change Impacts in the Western U.S.
A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2021) | Viewed by 410
Special Issue Editor
Interests: fires hazards; biodiversity; biogeography; ecosystem functions; land use change recreation; geospatial analysis; spatial analysis; geographic information systems; mathematical modeling; mathematical simulation; remote sensing; risk assessment; statistical analysis
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The unprecedented wildfires of 2020, and the conditions in which they are burning from California to Washington, may be a preview of a growing climate crisis. Midway through the fire season, over 5 million acres of the Western U.S. have burned, with five of the six largest wildfires in California’s history still smoldering, and Oregon and Washington each experiencing wildfires outside their range of normal fire activity. Set amongst this backdrop, land use change, such as continued development in the wildland urban interface, is simultaneously increasing the likelihood and consequences of catastrophic wildfires—the impacts of which will likely grow as climate change directly and indirectly increases the risk of wildfire.
In this Special Issue, we seek papers investigating the nature of coupled climate, wildfire, and land use change effects in the Western U.S. Analyses of projections and scenarios of potential future conditions are suggested to capture a range of conditions that may now seem more plausible given current events. Impacts to ecosystem services, species of concern, human communities, and economic effects from wildfire are all welcomed. Investigations of actionable management activities and mitigation decisions through time given changing climate conditions and land cover/land use change are encouraged. The goal of this collection is therefore timely and broad, ranging from the identification of local actions to reduce the consequence of wildfire, to exploring large-scale natural climate solutions to reduce climate change effects.
Dr. Jason Kreitler
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- land use change
- climate change
- wildfire
- fire effects
- Western U.S.
- California
- scenarios
- projections
