Turkey Turkey Turkey Turkey

Forest fires Turkey

Vulnerabilities

Forest fire danger, length of the fire season, and fire frequency and severity are very likely to increase in the Mediterranean (1). Dry weather and damaged ecosystem with accumulation of dead biomass increase the risk of forest fires and therefore increased climate variability will augment the risk of forest fires (2). In addition, forest fires are expected to encourage the spread of invasive species which in turn have been shown to fuel more frequent and more intense forest fires (3).

Projections of forest fire risk in 2030-2060 compared with 1961-1990 suggest that Turkey is among the most affected regions (3). There will be 2 to 6 additional weeks of fire risk in most of the Mediterranean region. The maximum increase is inland, including Central Turkey, where at least an additional month with risk of fire is expected. A significant proportion of this increase in fire risk is actually extreme fire risk.

Contrary to the pattern expected in boreal and temperate forests, both the frequency and intensity of fires in subtropical forests will eventually decrease after an initial phase of increase once rainfall has decreased so much that less grass fuel is available to support fires (4).

References

The references below are cited in full in a separate map 'References'. Please click here if you are looking for the full references for Turkey.

  1. Alcamo et al. (2007)
  2. Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea of Italy (2007)
  3. Giannakopoulos et al. (2005)
  4. Fischlin (ed.) (2009)
x