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The relationship between particulate pollution levels in Australian cities, meteorology, and landscape fire activity detected from MODIS hotspots
Citation
Price, OF and Williamson, GJ and Henderson, SB and Johnston, F and Bowman, DMJS, The relationship between particulate pollution levels in Australian cities, meteorology, and landscape fire activity detected from MODIS hotspots, PL o S One, 7, (10) Article e47327. ISSN 1932-6203 (2012) [Refereed Article]
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Copyright Statement
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
DOI: doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0047327
Abstract
Smoke from bushfires is an emerging issue for fire managers because of increasing evidence for its public health effects.
Development of forecasting models to predict future pollution levels based on the relationship between bushfire activity
and current pollution levels would be a useful management tool. As a first step, we use daily thermal anomalies detected by
the MODIS Active Fire Product (referred to as ‘‘hotspots’’), pollution concentrations, and meteorological data for the years
2002 to 2008, to examine the statistical relationship between fire activity in the landscapes and pollution levels around
Perth and Sydney, two large Australian cities. Resultant models were statistically significant, but differed in their goodness of
fit and the distance at which the strength of the relationship was strongest. For Sydney, a univariate model for hotspot
activity within 100 km explained 24% of variation in pollution levels, and the best model including atmospheric variables
explained 56% of variation. For Perth, the best radius was 400 km, explaining only 7% of variation, while the model
including atmospheric variables explained 31% of the variation. Pollution was higher when the atmosphere was more stable
and in the presence of on-shore winds, whereas there was no effect of wind blowing from the fires toward the pollution
monitors. Our analysis shows there is a good prospect for developing region-specific forecasting tools combining hotspot
fire activity with meteorological data.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | fire, particulates, smoke |
| Research Division: | Environmental Sciences |
| Research Group: | Ecological applications |
| Research Field: | Landscape ecology |
| Objective Division: | Health |
| Objective Group: | Public health (excl. specific population health) |
| Objective Field: | Public health (excl. specific population health) not elsewhere classified |
| UTAS Author: | Williamson, GJ (Dr Grant Williamson) |
| UTAS Author: | Johnston, F (Professor Fay Johnston) |
| UTAS Author: | Bowman, DMJS (Professor David Bowman) |
| ID Code: | 82375 |
| Year Published: | 2012 |
| Web of Science® Times Cited: | 30 |
| Deposited By: | Plant Science |
| Deposited On: | 2013-01-29 |
| Last Modified: | 2017-01-23 |
| Downloads: | 422 View Download Statistics |
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