Introduction
Recently, Australia has been exposed to the dangers associated with bushfires. Worldwide, there is consensus that climate change is a major driver of increased wildfire hazards (Jones et al., 2022). The “Black Summer” wildfires of 2019–2020 stood out from others in terms of the amount of burned land, the number of casualties, and habitat destruction (Haque et al., 2023). This colossal fire caused 50 times more damage than the worst California wildfires in history and five times more area than the 2019 Amazon disasters (Haque et al., 2023).
Australia experienced almost 15,000 fires across all its states, with disastrous effects on terrestrial and marine ecosystems (Haque et al., 2023). Many habitats for humans, animals, and plants were destroyed by this massive fire (Ambadan et al., 2020). It killed three billion animals, burned more than 18 million hectares, destroyed over 3,000 houses, and killed 429 people from smoke-related causes (Di Virgilio et al., 2021).
Australia recorded the highest number of wildfire fatalities during the Black Summer, with costs exceeding $100 billion (Tin, Hertelendy, and Ciottone, 2021). Therefore, the interconnectedness of climate change and bushfires must be analyzed. The precise impact of climate change on the severity, frequency, and scope of the Australian bushfires in 2020 is unknown, as is the effectiveness of current wildfire control techniques in mitigating the dangers they pose. These can be seen as the most significant gaps in the literature. In the Australian context, this paper explores the link between climate change and wildfire risk factors to provide a comprehensive overview of the topic.
In light of the 2020 Australian bushfires, the objective is to compile and critically assess the body of research on wildfire risk factors and climate change.
Study Area
It is noteworthy that Australia regularly experiences wildfires. Numerous wildfire incidents have been documented in Australia. Notable examples of destructive wildfires that have happened recently include the Gippsland fires, Black Sunday and Friday in 1926 and 1939, and the Australian Bushfire Season in 1974–1975 (Haque et al., 2023). Additionally, there was the Waterfall bushfire in 1980, the most recent Canberra wildfires in 2003, and the Black Saturday wildfire in 2009 (Haque et al., 2023). As seen in Figure 1, the number of wildfires increased rapidly in Australia.
Methodology
This paper uses a thorough literature review to adopt a qualitative methodology. There will be a thorough examination of five critical sources of literature on the subject. These resources were chosen for their contribution to the topic’s understanding, rigor, and relevance.
The review aims to provide a thorough understanding of the topic by examining a select few excellent sources. Moreover, to ensure reliable, credible findings, only peer-reviewed scholarly sources published in the last five years were used. The rigorous examination process that peer-reviewed publications undergo by subject matter experts improves the quality and validity of the results. By selecting such sources, it is feasible to reach valid findings for the given paper.
Key factors of interest include rising temperatures, protracted droughts, and altered vegetation patterns. The review aims to synthesize and analyze the existing knowledge on these topics, highlighting the current understanding of the impacts of climate change on wildfire occurrence, intensity, and behavior. Moreover, a critical analysis of the selected literature is conducted to extract key findings, identify trends, and address knowledge gaps.
Finally, the literature review involves an extensive search of academic databases, such as PubMed and Web of Science, to identify relevant articles. Keywords included: climate change, wildfire risk factors, Australia, temperature, drought, vegetation, and fuel. To meet the study’s objective, the results of the literature review are compiled and presented in an orderly manner. The discussion section provides a thorough understanding of the subject, analyzes the results, and links the chosen five studies. Overall, the qualitative approach to the topic enabled a better understanding of its complexity and the connections between climate change and wildfires.
Results and Discussion
After conducting a thorough literature review, it has become evident that wildfires in Australia are connected to climate change, and several factors offset them. The first risk factor is linked to persistent dry seasons driven by intensifying climate change, as shown in Figure 2. The dry fuel load combined with the persistent drought in eastern Australia has resulted in widespread and violent bushfires in the spring of 2019 that have continued into the summer (King et al., 2020).
Another study, the one by Deb and colleagues (2020), shares the same perspective. As the vegetation (fuel) in the fire’s path becomes more readily available, combined with high temperatures, strong winds, and little precipitation, the fire spreads faster. It has historically resulted in significant bushfire events (Deb et al., 2020).
The third source by Nolan and colleagues adds information to such a view. Four requirements must be met for landscape-scale wildfires: spatially ongoing fuel (plant biomass), fuel dryness, an ignition source, and conductive weather (Nolan et al., 2020). Therefore, one of the main factors preventing the emergence of significant wildfires in this area is the second prerequisite, fuel dryness.
Another risk factor contributing to wildfires is oceanic modes of variability. King and colleagues (2020) link Australian droughts to the absence of Pacific and Indian Ocean mode states, which are essential sources of rainfall that trigger droughts. Similarly, Van Oldenborgh and colleagues (2021) examined record deviations in the Indian Ocean Dipole and the Southern Annular Mode, which accounted for over half of the droughts that occurred in July and December of the 2019–20 season. The analysis highlights the complexity of the 2019–20 wildfire outbreak and demonstrates the influence of anthropogenic climate change on certain factors (Van Oldenborgh et al., 2021).
The final contributing risk factor is high temperature caused by environmental changes. Since many elevated temperatures and extreme events would not occur without anthropogenic influence, mean warming levels have now increased considerably, and it is reasonable to predict that these events will only get stronger in the future (Sanderson and Fisher, 2020). Figure 3 shows the spread of wildfires across Australia.
Table 1 – Results
Table 1 presents key insights from the literature, focusing on the connection between climate change and factors influencing wildfire risk in Australia. At the same time, several limitations apply to this review. The review’s conclusions mostly rely on the body of existing literature. It is probable that, due to restrictions on access to the literature, some pertinent studies were overlooked or omitted from the review. Furthermore, because Australia is the review’s primary focus, there may be geographical bias.
Conclusions and Recommendations
In summary, the paper provided an overview of the research subject by examining the relationship between climate change and wildfire risk factors, with a focus on the Australian setting. The 2019–2020 “Black Summer” wildfires were unique in that they destroyed habitat, burned large areas of land, and claimed many lives. Wildfires occur almost every year in Australia, and extensive research indicates that while various factors counteract the effects of climate change, wildfires in Australia are related to it.
The first risk element concerns the ongoing dry seasons driven by a more intense climate. Ocean mode states also contribute to wildfires. The last contributing factor is high temperatures driven by shifting climatic conditions. As for recommendations for future research, it is critical to first conduct thorough studies to evaluate the long-term ecological effects of bushfires and how they interact with climate change. Furthermore, to provide more precise, tailored information on future climatic scenarios in Australian regions, future studies will need to improve climate projection models.
Reference List
Ambadan, J. T., et al. (2020) ‘Satellite-observed soil moisture as an indicator of wildfire risk‘, Remote Sensing, 12(10), 1543.
Deb, P., et al. (2020) ‘Causes of the widespread 2019–2020 Australian bushfire season‘, Earth’s Future, 8(11), p.1-17.
Di Virgilio, G., et al. (2021) ‘Air quality impacts of the 2019–2020 Black Summer wildfires on Australian schools‘, Atmospheric Environment, 261, p.1-16.
Haque, K. M. S., et al. (2023) ‘Wildfires in Australia: a bibliometric analysis and a glimpse on ‘Black Summer’ (2019/2020) disaster‘, Environmental Science and Pollution Research International, 30(29), pp. 73061–73086.
Jones, M. W., et al. (2022) ‘Global and regional trends and drivers of fire under climate change‘, Reviews of Geophysics, 60(3), pp. 1-76.
King, A.D., et al. (2020) ‘The role of climate variability in Australian drought‘, Nature Climate Change, 10(3), pp.177-179.
Nolan, R. H., et al. (2020) ‘Causes and consequences of eastern Australia’s 2019–20 season of mega-fires‘, Global Change Biology, 26(3), 1039–1041.
Sanderson, B.M. and Fisher, R.A. (2020) ‘A fiery wake-up call for climate science‘, Nature Climate Change, 10(3), pp.175-177.
Tin, D., Hertelendy, A. J., and Ciottone, G. R. (2021) ‘What we learned from the 2019-2020 Australian Bushfire disaster: making counter-terrorism medicine a strategic preparedness priority’, The American Journal of Emergency Medicine, 46, 742–743.
Van Oldenborgh, G. J., et al. (2021) ‘Attribution of the Australian bushfire risk to anthropogenic climate change‘, Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 21(3), pp.941-960.