Novel wildfire regimes under climate change and human activity: patterns, driving mechanisms and ecological impacts

Abstract

Fire regime refers to the statistical characteristics of fire events within specific spatio-temporal contexts, shaped by interactions among climatic conditions, vegetation types and natural or anthropogenic ignitions. Under the dual pressures of intensified global climate changes and human activities, fire regimes worldwide are undergoing unprecedented transformations, marked by increasing frequency of large and intense wildfires in some regions, yet declining fire activity in others. These fire regime changes (FRC) may drive responses in ecosystem structure and function across spatio-temporal scales, posing significant challenges to socio-economic adaptation and mitigation capacities. To date, research on the patterns and mechanisms of global FRC has rapidly expanded, with investigations into driving factors revealing complex interactions. This review synthesizes research advancements in FRC by analysing 17 articles from this special issue and 249 additional publications retrieved from the Web of Science. We systematically outline the key characteristics of FRC, geographical hotspots of fire regime transformation, critical fire-prone vegetation types, primary climatic and anthropogenic drivers and ecosystem adaptations and feedbacks. Finally, we highlight research frontiers and identify key approaches to advance this field and emphasize an interdisciplinary perspective in understanding and adapting to FRC.This article is part of the theme issue 'Novel fire regimes under climate changes and human influences: impacts, ecosystem responses and feedbacks'.

Keywords: climate change; ecological impacts; ecosystem feedback; fire activity; fire regime change; fire-prone vegetation; human activity.

Figure 1.

The temporal and geographical distributions of FRC studies. Pie charts depict the number of studies by self-reported biome, and histograms show the number of studies by decade of publication. The red section in each pie represents the most studied ecosystem type in each continent.

Figure 2.

The conceptual framework of fire regime changes (FRC) studies.

Figure 3.

The development of thematic contents in fire regime shift studies.