Are Wildfires in the Wildland-Urban Interface Increasing Temperatures? A Land Surface Temperature Assessment in a Semi-Arid Mexican City

Mariana Ayala-Carrillo, Michelle Farfán, Anahí Cárdenas-Nielsen and Richard Lemoine-Rodríguez ()
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Mariana Ayala-Carrillo: Departamento de Ingeniería Geomática e Hidráulica, División de Ingenierías, Universidad de Guanajuato, Guanajuato 36000, Mexico
Michelle Farfán: Departamento de Ingeniería Geomática e Hidráulica, División de Ingenierías, Universidad de Guanajuato, Guanajuato 36000, Mexico
Anahí Cárdenas-Nielsen: Departamento de Ingeniería Geomática e Hidráulica, División de Ingenierías, Universidad de Guanajuato, Guanajuato 36000, Mexico
Richard Lemoine-Rodríguez: Geolingual Studies Team, University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074 Würzburg, Germany

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 12, 1-15

Abstract: High rates of land conversion due to urbanization are causing fragmented and dispersed spatial patterns in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) worldwide. The occurrence of anthropogenic fires in the WUI represents an important environmental and social issue, threatening not only vegetated areas but also periurban inhabitants, as is the case in many Latin American cities. However, research has not focused on the dynamics of the local climate in the WUI. This study analyzes whether wildfires contribute to the increase in land surface temperature (LST) in the WUI of the metropolitan area of the city of Guanajuato (MACG), a semi-arid Mexican city. We estimated the pre- and post-fire LST for 2018–2021. Spatial clusters of high LST were detected using hot spot analysis and examined using ANOVA and Tukey’s post-hoc statistical tests to assess whether LST is related to the spatial distribution of wildfires during our study period. Our results indicate that the areas where the wildfires occurred, and their surroundings, show higher LST. This has negative implications for the local ecosystem and human population, which lacks adequate infrastructure and services to cope with the effects of rising temperatures. This is the first study assessing the increase in LST caused by wildfires in a WUI zone in Mexico.

Keywords: fire; grassland; urban climate; burned area; periurban (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:11:y:2022:i:12:p:2105-:d:980774

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