What is it about?
Fuel moisture content of forest canopy is a crucial driver of forest fires in many regions worldwide. Using a plant-hydraulics modelling framework we show that increasing foliage mortality caused by extreme drought decreased the moisture content of forest canopy and increases the vulnerability of forests to wildfires.
Featured Image
Photo by Maël on Unsplash
Why is it important?
We develloped the first model for predicting the water content of plant canopies that includes the response mechanisms of trees to soil and atmospheric droughts.
Perspectives
In the future, the model could help predict fire danger by incorporating the role of vegetation in calculations.
Julien Ruffault
Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Plant hydraulic modelling of leaf and canopy fuel moisture content reveals increasing vulnerability of a Mediterranean forest to wildfires under extreme drought, New Phytologist, December 2022, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/nph.18614.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
