Regional Subsahara Wildland Fire Network (Afrifirenet)


Wildland Fire Science


IGBP Miombo Science Network

The Miombo Network was formed to create a regional network for global change research on the dominant biome of Southern Africa: the Miombo Woodlands, and to design a project based on the IGBP Transects framework (IGBP Report 36) and the LUCC Core Project. The Miombo Woodlands system is taken to include all those Southern and Central African ecosystems which occur under a hot, subhumid, seasonally-wet climate on soils derived from acid crystalline geologies. The components of this system include woodlands on well-drained soils and hydromorphic grasslands (called dambos) in drainage lines. Miombo occupy about 5 million square km and support about 100 million people with food, fuel, building materials, medicines, and water.

The goals of the Miombo Network are:

  • to develop a fundamental understanding of the rates and causes of land cover changes in relation to land use patterns;
  • to predict the consequences of land use/land cover changes on regional climate, natural resources, water resources, carbon storage, and trace gas emissions;
  • to develop a predictive understanding of miombo woodland structure and function;
  • to understand determinants of the distribution of species and ecosystems in the miombo.

Wildland fire issues are addressed in the research of the Miombo network. For further information see:
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc11998/

Southern Africa Fire Atmosphere Research Initiative (SAFARI-2000)

SAFARI 2000 is an international regional science initiative being developed for Southern Africa to explore, study and address linkages between land-atmosphere processes and the relationship of biogenic, pyrogenic or anthropogenic emissions and the consequences of their deposition to the functioning of the biogeophysical and biogeochemical systems of southern Africa. This initiative is being built around a number of on-going, already funded activities by NASA, the international community and African nations in the southern African region.

SAFARI-2000 website: http://safari.gecp.virginia.edu/ (expired)

SAFARI 2000 Synthesis Workshop (7-11 October 2002).
Contact:
Dr. Bob Swap
rjs8g@cms.mail.virginia.edu

Southern Africa Fire Atmosphere Research Initiative (SAFARI-1992)

The Southern African Fire-Atmospheric Research Initiative (SAFARI-92) was a research programme similar to SAFARI-2000 and was operational in the early 1990s. SAFARI-92 covered primarily the African portion of the Southern Tropical Atlantic Regional Experiment (STARE). The research objectives included the investigation of the atmospheric chemical and ecological role of fire in African savannas and the study of trace gas emissions from burned soils. SAFARI-92 involved ground and airborne chemical and meteorological measurements in the source or near-source regions of South Africa and was carried out primarily as a cooperative international campaign. It also involved international participation in measuring emissions from savanna fires and other biomass burning as well as remote sensing of fires by satellites. The source related measurements were complemented by regional airborne and ground-based studies on pyrogenic pollutant distribution and transport.


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