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Matsala M, Odruzhenko A, Hinchuk T, Myroniuk V, Drobyshev I, Sydorenko S, Zibtsev S, Milakovsky B, Schepaschenko D, Kraxner F, Bilous A. War drives forest fire risks and highlights the need for more ecologically-sound forest management in post-war Ukraine. Sci Rep 2024; 14:4131. [PMID: 38374396 PMCID: PMC10876951 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-54811-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/04/2023] [Accepted: 02/16/2024] [Indexed: 02/21/2024] Open
Abstract
Since 24 February 2022, Ukraine has experienced full-scale military aggression initiated by the Russian Federation. The war has had a major negative impact on vegetation cover of war-affected regions. We explored interactions between pre-war forest management and the impacts of military activities in three of the most forested Ukrainian areas of interest (AOI), affected by the war. These were forests lying between Kharkiv and Luhansk cities (AOI 'East'), forests along the Dnipro River delta (AOI 'Kherson'), and those of the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone (AOI CEZ). We used Sentinel satellite imagery to create damaged forest cover masks for the year 2022. We mapped forests with elevated fire hazard, which was defined as a degree of exposure to the fire-supporting land use (mostly an agricultural land, a common source of ignitions in Ukraine). We evaluated the forest disturbance rate in 2022, as compared to pre-war rates. We documented significant increases in non-stand replacing disturbances (low severity fires and non-fire disturbances) for all three of the AOIs. Damaged forest cover varied among the AOIs (24,180 ± 4,715 ha, or 9.3% ± 1.8% in the 'East' AOI; 7,293 ± 1,925 ha, or 15.7% ± 4.1% in the 'Kherson' AOI; 7,116 ± 1,274 ha, or 5.0% ± 0.9% in the CEZ AOI). Among the forests damaged in 2022, the 'Kherson' AOI will likely have the highest proportion of an area with elevated fire hazard in the coming decades, as compared to other regions (89% vs. 70% in the 'East' and CEZ AOIs respectively). Future fire risks and extensive war-related disturbance of forest cover call for forest management to develop strategies explicitly addressing these factors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maksym Matsala
- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Alnarp, Sweden.
| | - Andrii Odruzhenko
- National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine
| | - Taras Hinchuk
- Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute, Kyiv, Ukraine
| | - Viktor Myroniuk
- National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine
| | - Igor Drobyshev
- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Alnarp, Sweden
- University of Quebec at Abitibi-Temiscamingue, Ville-Marie, Canada
| | - Serhii Sydorenko
- Ukrainian Order 'Sign of Honor' Research Institute of Forestry and Forest Melioration Named After G. M. Vysotsky, Kharkiv, Ukraine
| | - Sergiy Zibtsev
- National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine
| | | | | | - Florian Kraxner
- International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria
| | - Andrii Bilous
- National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine
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Myroniuk V, Zibtsev S, Bogomolov V, Goldammer JG, Soshenskyi O, Levchenko V, Matsala M. Combining Landsat time series and GEDI data for improved characterization of fuel types and canopy metrics in wildfire simulation. J Environ Manage 2023; 345:118736. [PMID: 37542807 DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.118736] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/18/2022] [Revised: 07/24/2023] [Accepted: 07/30/2023] [Indexed: 08/07/2023]
Abstract
Wildfires in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ) and other radioactively contaminated areas threaten human health and well-being with the potential to resuspend radionuclides. Wildfire behavior simulation is a necessary tool to examine the efficiency of fuel treatments in the CEZ, but it requires systematically updated maps of fuel types and canopy metrics. The objective of this study was to demonstrate an effective approach for mapping fuel types, canopy height (CH), and canopy cover (CC) in territories contaminated by radionuclides using Landsat time series (LTS) and Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) LiDAR observations. We combined LTS and GEDI data to map fuel types and canopy metrics used in wildfire simulations within the CEZ. Our classification model showed an adequate overall accuracy (75%) in mapping land covers and associated fuel types. The phenology metrics extracted from LTS reliably distinguished spectrally similar vegetation types (such as grasslands and croplands) which exhibit different flammability through the year. We also predicted a suite of relative heights metrics and CC at Landsat 30-m pixel level (R2 = 0.23-0.26) using the nearest neighbor technique. The imputed maps adequately captured the dynamics of CH and CC in the CEZ after recent large wildfires occurred in 2015, 2020, and 2022. Thus, we illustrate a LTS processing approach to produce wall-to-wall maps of canopy characteristics that are important for wildfire simulations. We conclude that continuous updating of land cover and canopy fuel data is crucial to ensure relevant fire management of radioactively contaminated landscapes and support local decision-making.
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Affiliation(s)
- Viktor Myroniuk
- National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, 15 Heroiv Oborony St., Kyiv, 03041, Ukraine.
| | - Sergiy Zibtsev
- National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, 15 Heroiv Oborony St., Kyiv, 03041, Ukraine; Regional Eastern Europe Fire Monitoring Center, 8 Buchmy St., Office 250, Kyiv, 02152, Ukraine
| | - Vadym Bogomolov
- Ukrainian Research Institute of Forestry and Forest Melioration, 86 Pushkinska St., Kharkiv, 61024, Ukraine
| | - Johann Georg Goldammer
- Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and Freiburg University, Global Fire Monitoring Center, 75 Georges-Köhler-Allee, Freiburg, 79110, Germany
| | - Oleksandr Soshenskyi
- National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, 15 Heroiv Oborony St., Kyiv, 03041, Ukraine
| | - Viacheslav Levchenko
- National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, 15 Heroiv Oborony St., Kyiv, 03041, Ukraine
| | - Maksym Matsala
- National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, 15 Heroiv Oborony St., Kyiv, 03041, Ukraine; Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre, Box 190, 234 22, Lomma, Alnarp, Sweden
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Evangeliou N, Zibtsev S, Myroniuk V, Zhurba M, Hamburger T, Stohl A, Balkanski Y, Paugam R, Mousseau TA, Møller AP, Kireev SI. Resuspension and atmospheric transport of radionuclides due to wildfires near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 2015: An impact assessment. Sci Rep 2016; 6:26062. [PMID: 27184191 PMCID: PMC4869032 DOI: 10.1038/srep26062] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/28/2016] [Accepted: 04/27/2016] [Indexed: 11/08/2022] Open
Abstract
In April and August 2015, two major fires in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ) caused concerns about the secondary radioactive contamination that might have spread over Europe. The present paper assessed, for the first time, the impact of these fires over Europe. About 10.9 TBq of (137)Cs, 1.5 TBq of (90)Sr, 7.8 GBq of (238)Pu, 6.3 GBq of (239)Pu, 9.4 GBq of (240)Pu and 29.7 GBq of (241)Am were released from both fire events corresponding to a serious event. The more labile elements escaped easier from the CEZ, whereas the larger refractory particles were removed more efficiently from the atmosphere mainly affecting the CEZ and its vicinity. During the spring 2015 fires, about 93% of the labile and 97% of the refractory particles ended in Eastern European countries. Similarly, during the summer 2015 fires, about 75% of the labile and 59% of the refractory radionuclides were exported from the CEZ with the majority depositing in Belarus and Russia. Effective doses were above 1 mSv y(-1) in the CEZ, but much lower in the rest of Europe contributing an additional dose to the Eastern European population, which is far below a dose from a medical X-ray.
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Affiliation(s)
- N. Evangeliou
- Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), Department of Atmospheric and Climate Research (ATMOS), Kjeller, Norway
| | - S. Zibtsev
- National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine
| | - V. Myroniuk
- National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine
| | - M. Zhurba
- National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine
| | - T. Hamburger
- Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), Department of Atmospheric and Climate Research (ATMOS), Kjeller, Norway
| | - A. Stohl
- Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), Department of Atmospheric and Climate Research (ATMOS), Kjeller, Norway
| | - Y. Balkanski
- CEA-UVSQ-CNRS UMR 8212, Institut Pierre et Simon Laplace, Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (LSCE), L’Orme des Merisiers, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France
| | - R. Paugam
- King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - T. A. Mousseau
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA
| | - A. P. Møller
- Laboratoire d’Ecologie, Systématique et Evolution, CNRS UMR 8079, Université Paris-Sud, Bâtiment 362, F-91405 Orsay Cedex, France
| | - S. I. Kireev
- Deputy General Director of the State Enterprise “Chernobyl Special Kombinat”, Chernobyl city, 6 Shkolna street, Ukraine
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Evangeliou N, Balkanski Y, Cozic A, Hao WM, Mouillot F, Thonicke K, Paugam R, Zibtsev S, Mousseau TA, Wang R, Poulter B, Petkov A, Yue C, Cadule P, Koffi B, Kaiser JW, Møller AP. Fire evolution in the radioactive forests of Ukraine and Belarus: future risks for the population and the environment. ECOL MONOGR 2015. [DOI: 10.1890/14-1227.1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 35] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
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