Strategic analysis of forest vulnerability to risk related to fire: An example from the coniferous boreal forest of Quebec

Canadian Journal of Forest Research

Volumn 45, Issue 5, 2015, Pages 553-565

  Gauthier, Sylvie ^a   Raulier, Frédéric ^b   Ouzennou, Hakim ^c   Saucier, Jean Pierre ^c  

^a LAURENTIAN FORESTRY CENTRE   (Canada)

^b UNIVERSITÉ LAVAL   (Canada)

^c Direction des Inventaires Forestiers   (Canada)

Author keywords

Black spruce lichen forests; Black spruce moss forests; Fire; Mathematical bioeconomics; Productivity; Sustainable forest management

Indexed keywords

CLIMATE CHANGE; FIRES; PRODUCTIVITY; RISK ASSESSMENT; RISK PERCEPTION;

BIOECONOMICS; BLACK SPRUCE; BOREAL CONIFEROUS FORESTS; FOREST MANAGEMENT PLANNING; FOREST VULNERABILITY; INNOVATIVE APPROACHES; SOURCES OF UNCERTAINTY; SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT;

FORESTRY;

BOREAL FOREST; CLIMATE CHANGE; FOREST FIRE; FOREST MANAGEMENT; SPATIAL VARIATION; STAND DYNAMICS; SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY; VULNERABILITY;

FOREST MANAGEMENT; FORESTS; LICHENS; PICEA MARIANA; PRODUCTIVITY;

CANADA; QUEBEC [CANADA];

BRYOPHYTA; PICEA MARIANA;

EID: 84928387613     PISSN: 00455067     EISSN: 12086037     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1139/cjfr-2014-0125     Document Type: Article

References (67)

1. Allison, P.D. 1995. Survival analysis using SAS: a practical guide. SAS Institute Inc., Cary, North Carolina.
2. Armstrong, G.W. 1999. A stochastic characterisation of the natural disturbance regime of the boreal mixedwood forest with implications for sustainable forest management. Can. J. For. Res. 29: 424–433. doi:10.1139/x99-010.
3. Armstrong, G.W. 2004. Sustainability of timber supply considering the risk of wildfire. For. Sci. 50: 626–639.
4. Atkeson, C.G., Moore, A.W., and Schaal, S. 1997. Locally weighted learning. Artif. Intell. Rev. 11: 11–73. doi:10.1023/A:1006559212014.
5. Beaudoin, A., Bernier, P.Y., Guindon, L., Villemaire, P., Guo, X.J., Stinson, G., Bergeron, T., Magnussen, S., and Hall, R.J. 2014. Mapping attributes of Canada's forests at moderate resolution through kNN and MODIS imagery. Can. J. For. Res. 44: 521–232. doi:10.1139/cjfr-2013-0401.
6. Beaulieu, J., Raulier, F., Prégent, G., and Bousquet, J. 2011. Predicting site index from climatic, edaphic, and stand structural properties for seven plantationgrown conifer species in Quebec. Can. J. For. Res. 41: 682–693. doi:10.1139/x11-006.
7. Berger, J.-P., Joncas, J., Morin, P., Morneau, C., Philibert, Y., and Racine, P. 2008. Normes d'inventaire écodendrométrique nordique. Ministère des Ressources naturelles et de la Faune du Québec, Forêt Québec, Direction des inventaires forestiers.
8. Bergeron, Y., Gauthier, S., Kafka, V., Lefort, P., and Lesieur, D. 2001. Natural fire frequency for the eastern Canadian boreal forest: consequences for sustainable forestry. Can. J. For. Res. 31(3): 384–391. doi:10.1139/x00-178.
9. Bergeron, Y., Gauthier, S., Flannigan, M., and Kafka, V. 2004. Fire regimes at the transition between mixedwood and coniferous boreal forest in northwestern Quebec. Ecology, 85(7): 1916–1932. doi:10.1890/02-0716.
10. Bergeron, Y., Cyr, D., Girardin, M.P., and Carcaillet, C. 2010. Will climate change drive 21st century burn rates in Canadian boreal forest outside of its natural variability: collating global climate model experiments with sedimentary charcoal data. Int. J. Wildland Fire, 19(8): 1127–1139. doi:10.1071/WF09092.
11. Bernier, P.Y., Daigle, G., Rivest, L.-P., Ung, C.-H., Labbé, F., Bergeron, C., and Patry, A. 2010. From plots to landscape: a k-NN-based method for estimating stand-level merchantable volume in the province of Québec, Canada. For. Chron. 86(4): 461–468. doi:10.5558/tfc86461-4.
12. Bessie, W.C., and Johnson, E.A. 1995. The relative importance of fuels and weather on fire behavior in subalpine forests. Ecology, 76: 747–762. doi:10.2307/1939341.
13. Bettinger, P., Boston, K., Siry, J.P., and Grebner, D.L. 2009. Forest management and planning. Academic Press, Burlington, Massachusetts.
14. Bettinger, P., Siry, J., and Merry, K. 2013. Forest management planning technologies issues posed by climate change. For. Sci. Technol. 9: 9–19. doi:10.1080/21580103.2013.773659.
15. Boucher, D., Gauthier, S., and De Grandpré, L. 2006. Structural changes in coniferous stands along a chronosequence and a productivity gradient in the northeastern boreal forest of Québec. Ecoscience, 13(2): 172–180. doi:10.2980/i1195-6860-13-2-172.1.
16. Boychuk, D., and Martell, D.L. 1996. A multistage stochastic programming model for sustainable forest-level timber supply under risk of fire. For. Sci. 42: 10–26.
17. Cleveland, W.S. 1979. Robust locally weighted regression and smoothing scatterplots. J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 74: 829–836. doi:10.1080/01621459.1979.10481038.
18. Didion, M., Fortin, M.-J., and Fall, A. 2007. Forest age structure as indicator of boreal forest sustainability under alternative management and fire regimes: a landscape level sensitivity analysis. Ecol. Model. 200: 45–58. doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2006.07.011.
19. Flannigan, M.D., Logan, K.A., Amiro, B.D., Skinner, W.R., and Stocks, B.J. 2005. Future area burned in Canada. Clim. Change, 72(1–2): 1–16. doi:10.1007/s10584-005-5935-y.
20. Gauthier, S., Leduc, A., Bergeron, Y., and Le Goff, H. 2009. Fire frequency and forest management based on natural disturbances. In Ecosystem management in the boreal forest. Edited by S. Gauthier, M.A. Vaillancourt, A. Leduc, L. De Grandpré, D. Kneeshaw, H. Morin, P. Drapeau, and Y. Bergeron. Presses de l'Université du Québec. Chapter 3, pp. 39–56.
21. Gauthier, S., Boucher, D., Morissette, J., and De Grandpré, L. 2010. Fifty-seven years of composition change in the eastern boreal forest of Canada. J. Veg. Sci. 21: 772–785. doi:10.1111/j.1654-1103.2010.01186.x.
22. Girardin, M.P., Ali, A., Carcaillet, C., Mudelsee, M., Drobyshev, I., Hély, C., and Bergeron, Y. 2009. Heterogeneous response of circumboreal wildfire risk to climate change since the early 1900s. Glob. Chang. Biol. 15: 2751–2769. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.01869.x.
23. Héon, J. 2010. Chevauchement des feux dans la taïga du Québec. Mémoire de maîtrise en gestion de la faune et de ses habitats. Université du Québec à Rimouski.
24. Héon, J., Arseneault, D., and Parisien, M.-A. 2014. Resistance of the boreal forest to high burn rates. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 111: 13888–13893.
25. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 2005. Guidance notes for lead authors of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report on Addressing Uncertainties. Available from https://www.ipcc-wg1.unibe.ch/publications/supportingmaterial/uncertainty-guidance-note.pdf.
26. Johnson, E.A. 1992. Fire and vegetation dynamics — studies from the North American boreal forest. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
27. Johnson, E.A., and Gutsell, S.L. 1994. Fire frequency models, methods and interpretations. Adv. Ecol. Res. 25: 239–287. doi:10.1016/S0065-2504(08)60216-0.
28. Jurdant, M., Bélair, J.L., Gerardin, V., and Ducruc, J.-P. 1977. L'inventaire du Capital-Nature. Méthode de classification et de cartographie écologique du territoire. Pêches et Environnement Canada, Direction générale des terres, Série de la classification écologique du territoire, n° 2.
29. Le Goff, H., Girardin, M.-P., Flannigan, M.D., and Bergeron, Y. 2008. Dendroclimatic inference of wildfire activity in Quebec over the 20th century and implications for natural disturbance-based forest management. Int. J. Wildland Fire, 17: 348–362. doi:10.1071/WF07080.
30. Leboeuf, A., Robitaille, A., Létourneau, J.-P., Morneau, C., and Bourque, L. 2012. Norme de cartographie écoforestière du programme d'inventaire écoforestier nordique (PIEN). Ministère des Ressources naturelles, Forêt Québec, Direction des inventaires forestiers.
31. Lord, G., and Robitaille, A. 2013. Portrait biophysique du territoire d'étude. In Rapport du Comité scientifique chargé d'examiner la limite nordique des forêts attribuables. Ministère des Ressources naturelles du Québec, Secteur des forêts, Annexe 4.
32. Mansuy, N., Gauthier, S., Robitaille, A., and Bergeron, Y. 2010. The effects of surficial deposit–drainage combinations on spatial variations of fire cycles in the boreal forest of eastern Canada. Int. J. Wildland Fire, 19: 1083–1098. doi:10.1071/WF09144.
33. Mansuy, N., Gauthier, S., Robitaille, A., and Bergeron, Y. 2012. Regional patterns of postfire canopy recovery in the northern boreal forest of Quebec: interactions between surficial deposit, climate, and fire cycle. Can. J. For. Res. 42(7): 1328–1343. doi:10.1139/x2012-101.
34. McKenney, D.W., and Pedlar, J.H. 2003. Spatial models of site index based on climate and soil properties for two boreal tree species in Ontario, Canada. For. Ecol. Manage. 175(1–3): 497–507. doi:10.1016/S0378-1127(02)00186-X.
35. McRoberts, R.E., Tomppo, E.O., Finley, A.O., and Heikkinen, J. 2007. Estimating areal means and variances of forest attributes using the k-Nearest Neighbors technique and satellite imagery. Remote Sens. Environ. 111(4): 466–480. doi: 10.1016/j.rse.2007.04.002.
36. Ministère des Ressources naturelles et de la Faune (MRNF). 2006a. Normes d'inventaire forestier; placettes échantillons permanentes. Forêt Québec, Direction des inventaires forestiers.
37. Ministère des Ressources naturelles et de la Faune (MRNF). 2006b. Normes d'inventaire forestier; placettes échantillons temporaires. Forêt Québec, Direction des inventaires forestiers.
38. Ministère des Ressources naturelles et de la Faune (MRNF). 2009. Norme de cartographie écoforestière; troisième inventaire écoforestier. Forêt Québec, Direction des inventaires forestiers.
39. Moeur, M., and Stage, A.R. 1995. Most similar neighbor: an improved sampling inference procedure for natural resource planning. For. Sci. 41: 337–359.
40. Monserud, R.A. 1984. Height growth and site index curves for inland Douglas-fir based on stem analysis data and forest habitat type. For. Sci. 30: 943–965.
41. Mudelsee, M. 2002. XTREND: a computer program for estimating trends in the occurrence rate of extreme weather and climate events. Scientific Reports of the Institute of Meteorology of the University of Leipzig, 26: 149–195.
42. Mudelsee, M. 2006. CLIM-X-DETECT: a Fortran 90 program for robust detection of extremes against a time-dependent background in climate records. Comput. Geosci. 32: 141–144. doi:10.1016/j.cageo.2005.05.010.
43. Niklasson, M., and Granström, A. 2000. Numbers and sizes of fires: long-term spatially explicit fire history in a Swedish boreal landscape. Ecology, 81(6): 1484–1499. doi:10.1890/0012-9658(2000)081[1484:NASOFL]2.0.CO;2.
44. Payette, S. 1992. Fire as a controlling process in the North American boreal forest. In A systems analysis of the global boreal forest. Edited by H.H. Shugart, R. Leemans, and G.B. Bonan. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. pp. 145–169.
45. Payette, S., and Delwaide, A. 2003. Shift of conifer boreal forest to lichen–heath parkland caused by successive disturbances. Ecosystems, 6: 540–550. doi:10.1007/PL00021507.
46. Peter, B., and Nelson, J. 2005. Estimating harvest schedules and profitability under the risk of fire disturbance. Can. J. For. Res. 35: 1378–1388. doi:10.1139/x05-073.
47. Pothier, D., and Savard, F. 1998. Actualisation des tables de production pour les principales espèces forestières du Québec. Ministère des Ressources naturelles, Gouvernement du Québec, Québec (Québec), Canada.
48. Pouliot, D., Paquet, S., Déry, S., Jetté, J.-P., Pouliot, B., and Pâquet, J. 2010. Guide pour la préparation et l'analyse des plans annuels d'interventions forestières de 2011–2012 et de 2012–2013. Mesures associées aux dérogations à la coupe en mosaïque dans la pessière à mousses. Ministère des Ressources naturelles et de la Faune, Direction de l'environnement et de la protection des forêts, Québec.
49. Price, D.T., Alfaro, R.I., Brown, K.J., Flannigan, M.D., Fleming, R.A., Hogg, E.H., Girardin, M.P., Lakusta, T., Johnston, M., McKenney, D.W., Pedlar, J.H., Stratton, T., Sturrock, R.N., Thompson, I.D., Trofymow, J.A., and Venier, L.A. 2013. Anticipating the consequences of climate change for Canada's boreal forest ecosystems. Environ. Rev. 21(4): 322–365. doi:10.1139/er-2013-0042.
50. Rapanoela, R., Raulier, F., Gauthier, S., Ouzennou, H., Saucier, J.-P., and Bergeron, Y. 2015. Contrasting current and potential productivity and the influence of fire and species composition in the boreal forest: a case study in eastern Canada. Can. J. For. Res. 45(5): 541–552 (this issue). doi:10.1139/cjfr-2014-0124.
51. Raulier, F., Le Goff, H., Gauthier, S., Rapanoela, R., and Bergeron, Y. 2013a. Introducing two indicators for fire risk consideration in the management of boreal forests. Ecol. Indic. 24: 451–461. doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2012.07.023.
52. Raulier, F., Ouzennou, H., Saucier, J.-P., Bergeron, Y., Campagna, M., and Lord, D. 2013b. Productivité: description du critère et de l'indicateur, justification des seuils, méthode retenue et résultats détaillés. In Rapport du Comité scientifique chargé d'examiner la limite nordique des forêts attribuables. Ministère des Ressources naturelles du Québec, Secteur des forêts, Annexe 6, chapitre 4. pp. 79–103.
53. Reed, W.J. 2006. A note on fire frequency concepts and definitions. Can. J. For. Res. 36(7): 1884–1888. doi:10.1139/x06-096.
54. Reed, W.J., and Errico, D. 1986. Optimal harvest scheduling at the forest level in the presence of the risk of fire. Can. J. For. Res. 16: 266–278. doi:10.1139/x86-047.
55. Régnière, J., and Saint-Amant, R. 2008. BioSIM 9 — Manuel de l'utilisateur. Ressources naturelles Canada, Service canadien des forêts, Centre de foresterie des Laurentides, Rapport d'information LAU-X-134F. Available from ftp://ftp.cfl.scf.rncan.gc.ca/regniere/software/BioSIM/ [accessed 11 December 2013].
56. Robitaille, A., Leboeuf, A., and Haché, M. 2013. Programme d'acquisition de connaissances. In Rapport du Comité scientifique chargé d'examiner la limite nordique des forêts attribuables. Ministère des Ressources naturelles du Québec, Secteur des forêts, Annexe 2, chapitre 1. pp. 5–8.
57. Robitaille, A., Saucier, J.-P., Chabot, M., Côté, D., and Boudreault, C. 2015. An approach for assessing suitability for forest management based on constraints of the physical environment at a regional scale. Can. J. For. Res. 45(5): 529–539 (this issue). doi:10.1139/cjfr-2014-0338.
58. Saucier, J.-P. 2013. Placettes-échantillons et plan de sondage. In Rapport du Comité scientifique chargé d'examiner la limite nordique des forêts attribuables. Ministère des Ressources naturelles du Québec, Secteur des forêts, Annexe 2, chapitre 2. pp. 9–15.
59. Saucier, J.-P., Robitaille, A., and Grondin, P. 2009. Cadre bioclimatique du Québec. In Manuel de foresterie. Chapitre Écologie forestière. 2e éd. Éditions Multimondes, Ordre des ingénieurs forestiers du Québec, Québec, Canada. pp. 186–205.
60. Savage, D.W., Martell, D.L., and Wotton, B.M. 2010. Evaluation of two risk mitigation strategies for dealing with fire-related uncertainty in timber supply modelling. Can. J. For. Res. 40: 1136–1154. doi:10.1139/X10-065.
61. Savage, D., Wotton, B.M., Martell, D.L., and Woodford, D.G. 2013. The impact of uncertainty concerning historical burned area estimates on forest management planning. For. Sci. 59: 578–588.
62. Schimmel, J., and Granström, A. 1997. Fuel succession and fire behaviour in the Swedish boreal forest. Can. J. For. Res. 27: 1207–1216. doi:10.1139/x97-072.
63. Shaw, J.D., and Long, J.N. 2007. A density management diagram for longleaf pine stands with application to red-cockaded woodpecker habitat. South. J. Appl. For. 31: 28–38.
64. Sirois, L. 2000. Spatiotemporal variations in black spruce cone and seed crops along a boreal forest – tree line transect. Can. J. For. Res. 30: 900–909. doi:10.1139/x00-015.
65. Ung, C.-H., Bernier, P.Y., Raulier, F., Fournier, R.A., Lambert, M.-C., and Régnière, J. 2001. Biophysical site indices for shade tolerant and intolerant boreal species. For. Sci. 47: 83–95.
66. Van Wagner, C.E. 1983. Simulating the effect of forest fire on long-term annual timber supply. Can. J. For. Res. 13: 451–457. doi:10.1139/x83-068.
67. Weiskittel, A.R., Hann, D.W., Kershaw, J.A., and Vanclay, J.K. 2011. Forest growth and yield modeling. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, UK.