University of Tasmania
Browse
journal.pone.0047327.pdf (1.97 MB)

The relationship between particulate pollution levels in Australian cities, meteorology, and landscape fire activity detected from MODIS hotspots

Download (1.97 MB)
journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-17, 15:39 authored by Price, OF, Grant WilliamsonGrant Williamson, Henderson, SB, Fay JohnstonFay Johnston, David BowmanDavid Bowman
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.

History

Publication title

PL o S One

Volume

7

Issue

10

Article number

e47327

Number

e47327

Pagination

1-10

ISSN

1932-6203

Department/School

School of Natural Sciences

Publisher

Public Library of Science

Place of publication

1160 Battery St, Koshland Bldg E, SFO, CA 94111,US

Rights statement

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Repository Status

  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Public health (excl. specific population health) not elsewhere classified

Usage metrics

    University Of Tasmania

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC