Lovisa Rosenquist Ohlsson wrote her masters thesis during the spring of 2024 as part of the Critical Physical Geography working group. Here is her abstract:
Climate and weather extremes have been observed to occur more frequently and with a higher intensity on a global scale. A quarter of the Earth’s vegetated surface has seen an increase in the fire weather season, amounting in 3% of the Earth’s surface burning annually and 1.6-2.8 Pg of carbon being emitted every year. Today, 90% of fires globally are ignited by human actions, and areas burned are increasing for some regions, such as the Middle East. Although vegetation fires are vital processes of the Earth’s system, they can cause harm to both human health and ecosystems.
The link between climate and fires have been studied continuously in western, developed and European regions, but not so much in arid regions experiencing conflict. As the Middle East is projected to see more frequent heatwaves, already experience natural disasters due to climate change, and has seen reoccurring conflicts for the past decades, it may benefit from studies connecting climate, vegetation fires and conflict. This study aims to investigate when and where vegetation fires occurred in Iraq during 2001-2022, as well as investigating how climate factors and conflict events may have affected these fires. This was done by looking at areas and periods experiencing a higher-than-normal number of fires and conflicts, as well as the weather during those events.
Maps for fire seasonality and peak fire month (months and administrative regions experiencing 10% or more of all fires) were produced, along with maps showing areas with higher numbers of fires and conflict over the entire study period (frequency). Statistical tests indicated that wetter conditions over longer periods of time and regions associated with more vegetation showed higher numbers of fires, while conflicts more commonly occurred in drier regions. It was also indicated that conflict may not necessarily affect the number and pattern of fires on a national scale, as climate does, but rather on a local scale.
The full thesis can be found here.
