Simulation and Modelling Studies, India

2.2 Economic Impact

Examples:

• In 1983, in Australia, the disaster that came to be known as Ash Wednesday claimed 77 lives, injured 3570 people, destroyed 2500 homes and burned over 340,000 hectares of urban, forested and pastoral lands in a single day.
• In 1987, Northern China’s 1.3 million hectares burned along with significant loss of life and communities; and even larger losses were recorded in neighbouring Russia.
• In 1988, in North America 500,000 hectares were consumed in Yellowstone National Park in the USA and Mexico experienced fire losses exceeding 120,000 hectares.
• Mongolia captured the world headlines in 1995 losing 80 square km of forest and pasture land, along with 6,000 cattle and 17 people to wildfires. In many countries forest fires has reached crisis situation.

Southeast Asia too has experienced extraordinary losses

• In Sabah in the period 1983-1985 more than 1 million hectares of forests were burnt due to the severe drought experienced in the region.
• During the same period the biggest fire occurred in East Kalimantan destroying 2.7 million hectares of tropical rain forest in the middle Mahakam area. Losses were estimated to be $8.3 billion US.
• In 1991, 72,000 hectares were burnt in Indonesia and in 1994 large wildfires in ASEAN contributed to the haze problems experienced in Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. It is estimated that timber losses alone in ASEAN region amounted to $0.5 – $1.0 billion US.
• Some statistics regarding the amount of forest fires are destroying annually:

Indonesia – 481,000 ha ; Malaysia – 997,000 ha ;

Philippines – 307,000 ha ; Thailand – 500,000 ha

• Situation in India: In the past fires occurred sporadically, but in recent times there are incidents of serious concern, caused by several factors-particularly increased human activities, commercial propositions, droughts and pollution factors

Though Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei are known to have suffered from forest fire, detailed data are not available.

The statistics given above are estimated losses of the first order, but losses due to environmental degradation and morbidity caused by smoke and polluted air are significant yet they have not been monetized. The losses due to closure of international airports of commercial significance like Singapore, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur could be very substantial indeed.

3. RATIONALE AND MANDATE FOR THIS INITIATIVE

During 23-25 November 1998 in Chennai, COSTED organized, in co-operation with the Federation of Asian Scientific Academies and Societies (FASAS*), and with funding support from UNESCO, New Delhi and the International Division of the Department of Science and Technology (Government of India) a symposium on “Identification of S&T Priorities for Asian Regional Co-operation”. Heads and senior functionaries of FASAS* bodies who attended the Symposium agreed unanimously that COSTED should establish an initiative to identify the S&T issues and knowledge gaps on forest fires and stimulate necessary studies which will help in enhancing the ability of the countries to anticipate forest fires and strengthen mitigatory measures.

A survey of other initiatives on forest fires world wide indicate, that there has been no systematic studies on modelling and simulation in the Asian region. There are however many useful studies on monitoring and estimating the impact of Forest Fires in Asia. These studies could form very useful inputs to the proposed project.

Following the South-East Asian forest fires in 1997, four major regional workshops have been held in 1998 (including the COSTED-FASAS workshop) all of which reiterated the urgency and importance of a systematic study for mitigating the adverse impacts of Forest Fires.

This project received mandate from COSTED’s Executive Committee as well as its plenary of members.

FASAS Member countries – Australia, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.