Publication Abstracts

Mortelmans et al. 2025, in press

Mortelmans, J., S. Apers, G.J.M. De Lannoy, S. Veraverbeke, R.D. Field, N. Andela, and M. Bechtold, 2025: Using hydrological modeling to improve the Fire Weather Index system over tropical peatlands of Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, and Borneo. Int. J. Wildland Fire, in press.

The Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI) system was originally developed for upland boreal forests. Nonetheless, it is used globally to estimate fire danger in a wide range of ecosystems. In a recent study by Mortelmans et al. (2024), the FWI was adapted for boreal peatlands. This methodology is now extended to improve the performance of the FWI system over Southeast Asian peatlands in Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, and Borneo. Our study includes simulated tropical peatland hydrology in the FWI, thereby creating a new peatland-specific version of the FWI (FWIpeat). We replaced the three original moisture codes, that are input to the FWI, with groundwater table estimates by matching the cumulative density functions, and we evaluated FWIpeat against satellite-based active fire presence from 2002 through 2018. Our results show that replacing all original moisture codes with the simulated groundwater table improves the capabilities of the FWI system to estimate active fire presence in tropical Southeast Asian peatlands of Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, and Borneo. However, for tropical peatland fires, the improvements introduced by FWIpeat are smaller than for fires in the boreal zone. This is attributed to the differences in the main ignition source (humans vs lightning) and the more complex hydrology of drained tropical peatlands compared to natural boreal peatlands.

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BibTeX Citation

@unpublished{mo05400t,
  author={Mortelmans, J. and Apers, S. and De Lannoy, G. J. M. and Veraverbeke, S. and Field, R. D. and Andela, N. and Bechtold, M.},
  title={Using hydrological modeling to improve the Fire Weather Index system over tropical peatlands of Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, and Borneo},
  year={2025},
  journal={International Journal of Wildland Fire},
  note={Manuscript accepted for publication}
}

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RIS Citation

TY  - INPR
ID  - mo05400t
AU  - Mortelmans, J.
AU  - Apers, S.
AU  - De Lannoy, G. J. M.
AU  - Veraverbeke, S.
AU  - Field, R. D.
AU  - Andela, N.
AU  - Bechtold, M.
PY  - 2025
TI  - Using hydrological modeling to improve the Fire Weather Index system over tropical peatlands of Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, and Borneo
JA  - Int. J. Wildland Fire
JO  - International Journal of Wildland Fire
ER  -

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