The intensity and frequency of forest fires are increasing in the cultural landscape of central Europe as the climate is becoming warmer and drier. This requires an understanding of natural regeneration processes in forests and the effects of traditional and new approaches to restoring fire-damaged forests; however, it warrants more research in Germany, where large-scale stand-replacing fire is a new phenomenon in recent times. Specifically, early successional plant pioneer communities, such as mosses, influence the regenerating forest system, by providing viable conditions and habitats for subsequent plant species. The present work focuses on the processes that take place in the moss communities undergoing management interventions of a gradient of intervention intensities after fire disturbance. In a plot-based field inventory, we investigated early successional moss communities three years after a forest fire in Brandenburg, Germany. The study area was subjected to various postfire interventions: high intensity site preparation and dense row planting, natural regeneration (no intervention), and a moderate site preparation in combination with low-density group planting approach. Utilizing Bray-Curtis-based nonmetric multidimensional scaling to assess similarities among postfire moss communities, a simplification of moss communities under high-intensity postfire intervention was observed. We found that the diversity and abundance of mosses decreased with the application of high-intensity postfire intervention but increased with the application of moderate postfire interventions. Furthermore, we found a higher share of light-demanding pioneer mosses in areas under high intensity postfire intervention. In areas under moderate or no postfire intervention, more shade-tolerant species were present. We conclude that moderate interventions with low-intensity site preparation and group planting resulted in reduced losses of moss species and coverage in the successional moss community.

This study presents a deep learning model created for enabling comprehensive wildfire control by seamlessly combining satellite images, weather data and terrain details. Current systems face challenges in comprehensively analyzing these factors due to limitations in data integration, dynamic fire behavior prediction, and post-fire ecological impact evaluation. By improving detection and accurate assessment of impact, the system addresses all aspects of wildfire management from forecasting to post event analysis. The model integrates soil quality examination and vegetation regrowth simulation Using image analysis and state of the art deep learning methods. This holistic approach of Image analysis employs Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) for predicting wildfire risk and Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) for assessing soil and hydrological effects. This adaptable approach, which aims to transform the way fire control is done, can be readily adjusted to changing conditions and takes correlations between different aspects into account. It surpasses conventional techniques by including soil quality analysis, vegetation regrowth modeling, and vegetation damage evaluation. The adaptable nature of this method proves invaluable, in lessening the impact of wildfires with a focus, on evaluating vegetation damage and promoting restoration.

Background The Lupande Game Management Area (GMA) and the adjacent South Luangwa National Park (NP) in Zambia allow comparison of fire regimes in African savannas with different human densities.Aims To investigate humans' effects on fire regimes within a sub-Saharan savanna ecosystem.Methods We delineated burned areas for the Lupande GMA and South Luangwa NP using 156 Landsat images from 1989 to 2017. We performed comparisons of fire regimes between the Lupande GMA and South Luangwa NP using various burned area variables and assessed their association with precipitation.Key results Overall, and compared with the South Luangwa NP, the Lupande GMA had a greater extent of burned area and a higher frequency of repeat burns. The Lupande GMA experienced fires earlier in the fire season, which are typically less damaging to woody vegetation. We observed a significant positive relationship between precipitation and burned area trends in South Luangwa NP but not in the Lupande GMA, suggesting that precipitation increases burned area in South Luangwa NP.Conclusions Results support the theory that human fire management mitigates climate's effect, particularly rainfall, on interannual burned area variation.Implications This study shows that human-dominated fire regimes in savannas can alter the influence of precipitation. This study analyses fire regimes in Zambia's South Luangwa National Park and Lupande Game Management Area. It examines the influence of climate and human activities on burned areas. Findings show differences in burned areas and highlight the significance of soil moisture and rainfall in shaping fire regimes in African savannas.

Geodiversity elements contribute significantly to local and global hydrological, biogeochemical and ecosystem services and as such, fire is a potentially disruptive force with long-term implications. from limiting karstic speleothems formation, to compounding impacts of peat-fire-erosion cycles. Geodiversity elements additionally possess important cultural, aesthetic, and environmental values, including the support of ecosystem services. Hence, assessments of potential fire damage should consider implications for land users, society, and culture, alongside the geomorphic impacts on geodiversity elements. With a view to providing a concise set of descriptors of the response of geodiversity elements to fire, we qualify and in places, quantify, how fire may degrade geosystem function. Where possible, we highlight the influence of fire intensity and frequency gradients, and cumulative fire, in the deterioration of geodiversity values. Geoconservation is integral to protected areas with implications from fire effected geodiversity functions and values presenting issues for management, with potential consequences extending through to delisting, degazetting, and resizing of protected areas. Future research in reserve systems should concentrate on understanding the synergistic and compounding effects of fire on the geophysical landscape. Geodiversity provides valuable benefits through its existence and function. Fire can degrade geodiversity elements in several ways, on vast spatial and temporal scales, with implications for geoconservation and protected areas management. Understanding recovery rates of geodiversity elements, and the cumulative impact of fire on geodiversity, requires further research.