Zhiwei Wu;Saijia Yan;Lei He;Yanlong Sha

School of Geography and Environment, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, People’s Republic of China;Key Laboratory of Poyang Lake Wetland and Watershed Research, Ministry of Education, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, People’s Republic of China;Forestry College, Beihua University, Jilin, People’s Republic of Chin

Forest loss;Forest fire;Burned area;Spatiotemporal variability;Correlation analysis;CLIMATE-CHANGE;LAND-COVER;FIRE;DYNAMICS;FRAGMENTATION;DEGRADATION;WILDFIRE;DRIVERS;IMPACTS;TREND

Fire-induced forest loss has substantially increased worldwide over the last decade. In China, the connection between forest loss and frequent fires on a national scale remains largely unexplored. In this study, we used a data set for a time-series of forest loss from the Global Forest Watch and for a MODIS-derived burned area for 2003-2015 to ascertain variations in forest loss and to explore its relationship with forest fires (represented by burned areas) at the country- and forest-zone levels. We quantified trends in forest loss during 2003-2015 using linear regression analysis and assessed the relation between forest loss and burned areas using Spearman's correlation. Forest loss increased significantly (264.8 km(2) a(-1); R-2 = 0.54, p < 0.01) throughout China, with an average annual increase of 11.4% during 2003-2015. However, the forest loss trend had extensive spatial heterogeneity. Forest loss increased mainly in the subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest zone (315.0 km(2) a(-1); R-2 = 0.69, p < 0.01) and tropical rainforest zone (38.8 km(2) a(-1); R-2 = 0.66, p < 0.01), but the loss of forest decreased in the cold temperate deciduous coniferous forest zone (- 70.8 km(2) year(-1); R-2 = 0.75, p < 0.01) and the temperate deciduous mixed broadleaf and coniferous forest zone (- 14.4 km(2) a(-1); R-2 = 0.45, p < 0.05). We found that 1.0% of China's area had a significant positive correlation (r >= 0.55, p < 0.05) with burned areas and 0.3% had a significant negative correlation (r <= - 0.55, p < 0.05). In particular, forest loss had a significant positive relationship with the burned area in the cold temperate deciduous coniferous forest zone (16.9% of the lands) and the subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest zone (7.8%). These results provide a basis for future predictions of fire-induced forest loss in China.