Abstract

VILLAR-HERNANDEZ, Bartolo de Jesús; PEREZ-ELIZALDE, Sergio; RODRIGUEZ-TREJO, Dante Arturo  and  PEREZ-RODRIGUEZ, Paulino. Spatio-temporal analysis of wildfires occurrence in the Mexican State of Oaxaca. Rev. mex. de cienc. forestales [online]. 2022, vol.13, n.74, pp.120-144.  Epub Dec 09, 2022. ISSN 2007-1132.  https://doi.org/10.29298/rmcf.v13i74.1274.

In this study, we modelled and analyzed hotspot events recorded by MODIS satellite during the last nineteen years in the Mexican state of Oaxaca using a hierarchical Poisson Bayesian model. Our approach models the number of forest fires in space, time and the interaction of both and considers environmental variables. According to our results, some environmental variables can explain some of the observed Spatio-temporal variations, such as the temperature of the driest quarter, average wind speed, enhanced vegetation index values, and the occurrence of El Niño-Southern Oscillation. The analysis identified two spatial cluster regions: the first covers the Sierra Juárez up to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and the second covers the Sierra del Sur. Additionally, the temporal term in our model suggests that the number of events has increased by approximately 42.2 % in the last two decades. In conclusion, our results prompt that forest fires increased not only spatially but also in temporarily. These findings are alarm signals because if the trend continues, hundreds of new hectares of forest and its biodiversity will be threatened in the following decades, affecting too economic activities and people's health living in rural and urban areas of Oaxaca. This study can be a primary analysis in designing more efficient fire management programs to mitigate the impacts of altered fire regimes in Oaxaca.

Keywords : Biodiversity loss; carbon emissions; hotspots; satellite observation; spatial clustering; wildfires.