Local fractality: The case of forest fires in Portugal

Mikhail Kanevski and Mário G. Pereira

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2017, vol. 479, issue C, 400-410

Abstract: The research deals with a study of local fractality in spatial distribution of forest fires in Portugal using the sandbox method. The general procedure is the following: (a) define a circle centred in each and all events with increasing radius R; (b) count the number of other events located within the circle of radius R, N(R); (c) plot the growth curve which is the functional dependence of N(R) versus R; and (d) estimate the local fractal dimension as the slope on log[N(R)] versus log[R]. The computation is carried out by using the location of every fire event as a centre but without the final averaging over all the fires for a given R, which is usually performed to get a global fractal dimension and to estimate global clustering. Sandbox method is widely used in many applications in physics and other subjects. The local procedure has the ability to provide the most complete information regarding the spatial distribution of clustering and avoiding non-homogeneity and non-stationarity problems. Most of the analysis was performed using the National Mapping Burnt Area (NMBA) database which accounts for 32 156 fires during the 1975–2013 period. The results of local analysis are compared with a randomly generated pattern in forest zones (validity domain). The results demonstrate interesting local spatial patterns of clustering. Some results on global measures are reported as well.

Keywords: Local fractality; Clustering analysis; Forest fires; Portugal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437117302200
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:479:y:2017:i:c:p:400-410

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2017.02.086

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().