Prescribed Fire: Balancing Public Health and Land Management Goals
Date
2022-05-22
Author
Advisors
Oren, Ram
Kalies, Elizabeth
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Abstract
Fire is a critical component of many natural disturbance regimes in the southeastern
United States; however, a century of fire suppression policies has disrupted many
such regimes and severely degraded ecosystems throughout the region. Today land managers
use prescribed fire to restore ecosystems, but the sudden increase in burning has
raised concerns over public health. Smoke from fire adds fine particulate matter (PM2.5)
to the atmosphere, which is linked to a myriad of negative health outcomes. This study
seeks to identify areas with high smoke sensitivity across the southeastern U.S. and
quantify the costs and benefits of using prescribed fire in these areas. Combining
a variety of ecological, epidemiological, and economic models using geographic information
systems, I found that using prescribed fire does negatively impact public health.
Nonetheless, this impact is dwarfed by the negative impact of wildfires, which are
more likely to occur if fire is excluded from fire-dependent ecosystems. I recommend
land managers continue to use prescribed fire for maintaining ecosystem functions,
but to minimize smoke dispersion over local and regional sensitive areas.
Type
Master's projectDepartment
Nicholas School of the EnvironmentPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/24898Citation
Oakley, Daniel (2022). Prescribed Fire: Balancing Public Health and Land Management Goals. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/24898.Collections
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