Open AccessHow wildfires increase sensitivity of Amazon forests to droughts
Author(s) -
Renan Le Roux,
Fabien Wagner,
Lilian Blanc,
Julie Betbeder,
Valéry Gond,
Hélène Dessard,
Beatriz M. Funatsu,
Clément Bourgoin,
Guillaume Cornu,
Bruno Hérault,
Frédérique Montfort,
Plínio Sist,
Agnès Bégué,
Vincent Dubreuil,
François Laurent,
François Messner,
Ali Fadhil Hassan,
Damien Arvor
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
environmental research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.37
H-Index - 124
ISSN - 1748-9326
DOI - 10.1088/1748-9326/ac5b3d
Subject(s) - environmental science , climate change , context (archaeology) , amazon rainforest , forest ecology , ecosystem , precipitation , greening , logging , agroforestry , geography , ecology , forestry , meteorology , archaeology , biology
The phenology of tropical forests is tightly related to climate conditions. In the Amazon, the seasonal greening of forests is conditioned by solar radiation and rainfall. Yet, increasing anthropogenic pressures (e.g. logging and wildfires), raise concerns about the impacts of forest degradation on the functioning of forest ecosystems, especially in a climate change context. In this study, we relied on remote sensing data to assess the contribution of solar radiation and precipitation to forest greening in mature and fire degraded forests, with a focus on the 2015 drought event. Our results showed that forest greening is more dependent on water resources in degraded forests than in mature forests. As a consequence, the expected increase in drought episodes and associated fire occurrences under climate change could lead to a long-term drying of tropical forests.