Journal Article

Reframing the Challenge of Global Wildfire Threats to Water Supplies

Hallema, Dennis W., Bladon, Kevin D., Robinne, François‐Nicolas

2018

Overview

The timing, extent, and severity of forest wildfires have increased in many parts of the world in recent decades. These wildfires can have substantial and devastating impacts on water supply, ecohydrological systems, and sociohydrosystems. Existing frameworks to assess the magnitude and spatial extent of these effects generally focus on local processes or services and are not readily transferable to other regions. However, there is a growing need for regional, continental, and global scale indices to assess the potential effect of wildfires on freshwater availability and water supply resilience. Such indices must consider both the individual and compound effects of wildfires. In so doing, this will enable comprehensive insights on the water security paradigm and the value of hydrological services in fire‐affected areas around the globe. Plain Language Summary The number of large forest fires and the length of the wildfire season have both increased globally in the past few decades. Wildfire trends are expected to continue due to increasing occurrence of drought and denser forests associated with historical forest management and fire suppression. This development has raised concerns for water supplies because most water used for irrigation, industry, hydropower, recreation, and community drinking water comes from rivers draining watersheds that are prone to wildfires. As such, it is critical to improve our understanding of the capacity of watersheds and downstream communities to absorb or mitigate fire impacts. In this commentary, we emphasize the need for new continental and global scale indices to assess the full range of wildfire hazards to water supply and society. This will ultimately contribute to sustainable policies and land management plans for safeguarding water supplies and community health. Key Points Globally, wildfires affect surface water supplies, but fire‐related natural and social interactions are often unknown Interactions between water domains—ecohydrology, hydrological services, society and water risks, and global water resources—are complex Future assessments of wildfire threats to water supply resilience must acknowledge impacts on these water domain interactions

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc,Wiley
• Subject: Climate change / Communities / Drainage / Drinking water / Drought / Ecohydrology / Ecosystems / Forest fires / Forest management / Forests / Hazard assessment / Hydroelectric power / Hydrology / Irrigation / Land management / Regions / Rivers / Runoff / sociohydrology / Spatial analysis / Surface water / water resources / Water security / Water shortages / Water supply / Watershed management / Watersheds / wildfire / Wildfires