The increasing intensity and frequency of natural disasters all around the world has caused severe socioeconomic impacts, especially in South and Southeast Asia. This region is particularly susceptible to vegetation fires, leading to biomass burning pollution with impacts on other countries through trans-boundary air pollution. Despite the growing body of information on biomass pollutants worldwide, only a modest amount of data from these regions are available. With fires and biomass burning identified as a vital issue in South/Southeast Asia, this two-volume set was created to meet community research and application needs. To better serve the atmospheric, environmental, and remote sensing communities, and to address air quality, climate, and the human health impacts of greenhouse gases and aerosols from biomass burning, this set brings together the collective achievements of experts in these regions and the state-of-the-art technologies and spatial analyses to model and monitor biomass burning events and their impacts. This first volume covers various topics on fire, biomass burning, mapping and monitoring while the second volume highlights the impact of biomass burning on the biosphere and reflects extensive research by interdisciplinary teams of experts. This set will serve as a valuable resource for remote sensing scientist, geographers, ecologists, atmospheric scientists, environmental scientists, and all who wish to advance their knowledge on fires, biomass burning, and biomass burning pollution in South/Southeast Asia Specific Features: Unique in its discussion of the sources and the causes of biomass burning and atmospheric research in South and Southeast Asia. Explains how remote sensing and geospatial technologies help the mapping and monitoring of biomass burning events and their impacts. Focuses on large spatial scales integrating top-down and bottom-up methodologies. Addresses the pressing issues of environmental pollution that are rampant in South and Southeast Asia. Includes contributions from global experts currently working on biomass burning projects in the US, Japan, South/Southeast Asia, and Europe.

Unique in its discussion of the sources and the causes of biomass burning and atmospheric research in South and Southeast Asia. Explains the latest tools and techniques, in particular, the use of Satellite Remote Sensing and Geospatial technologies for fire mapping, monitoring, and Land Cover/Land Use. Focuses on large spatial scales integrating top-down and bottom-up methodologies. Addresses the pressing issues of environmental pollution that are rampant in South and Southeast Asia. Includes contributions from global experts actually working on biomass burning projects in the US, Japan, South/Southeast Asia, and Europe.

Volume 1 of a two volume set, this book is a self-contained, state-of-the-art analysis of remote sensing, ground-based, and spatial techniques used for characterizing biomass burning events and pollution. It is a collective achievement of renowned scientists working throughout South and Southeast Asia. They discuss the complexity of vegetation patterns, biomass characteristics, fire distribution, drivers of fires, and several examples of the use of novel satellite algorithms for mapping and monitoring biomass burning events. The book is highly interdisciplinary and integrates earth science and environmental science including ecology, fire science, spatial geography, remote sensing, and geospatial technologies. Unique in its discussion of the sources and the causes of biomass burning and atmospheric research in South and Southeast Asia. Explains how remote sensing and geospatial technologies help the mapping and monitoring of biomass burning events and their impacts. Focuses on large spatial scales integrating top-down and bottom-up methodologies. Addresses the pressing issues of environmental pollution that are rampant in South and Southeast Asia. Includes contributions from global experts actually working on biomass burning projects in the US, Japan, South/Southeast Asia, and Europe. This book will serve as a valuable source of information for remote sensing scientists, geographers, ecologists, atmospheric scientists, environmental scientists, and all who wish to advance their knowledge on fires and biomass burning in South/Southeast Asia.

Volume 1 of a two volume set, this book is a self-contained, state-of-the-art analysis of remote sensing, ground-based, and spatial techniques used for characterizing biomass burning events and pollution. It is a collective achievement of renowned scientists working throughout South and Southeast Asia. They discuss the complexity of vegetation patterns, biomass characteristics, fire distribution, drivers of fires, and several examples of the use of novel satellite algorithms for mapping and monitoring biomass burning events. The book is highly interdisciplinary and integrates earth science and environmental science including ecology, fire science, spatial geography, remote sensing, and geospatial technologies. Unique in its discussion of the sources and the causes of biomass burning and atmospheric research in South and Southeast Asia. Explains how remote sensing and geospatial technologies help the mapping and monitoring of biomass burning events and their impacts. Focuses on large spatial scales integrating top-down and bottom-up methodologies. Addresses the pressing issues of environmental pollution that are rampant in South and Southeast Asia. Includes contributions from global experts actually working on biomass burning projects in the US, Japan, South/Southeast Asia, and Europe. This book will serve as a valuable source of information for remote sensing scientists, geographers, ecologists, atmospheric scientists, environmental scientists, and all who wish to advance their knowledge on fires and biomass burning in South/Southeast Asia.

Global Biomass Burning provides a convenient and current reference on such topics as the remote sensing of biomass burning from space, the geographical distribution of burning; the combustion products of burning in tropical, temperate, and boreal ecosystems; burning as a global source of atmospheric gases and particulates; the impact of biomass burning gases and particulates on global climate; and the role of biomass burning on biodiversity and past global extinctions."--Pub. desc.

Vegetation fires are prevalent in several regions of the world, including South/ Southeast Asia (S/SEA). Fire occurrence and spread are influenced by fuel type, topography, climate, weather, and lightning, among others. In S/SEA, human-initiated fires are responsible for most of the incidents in addition to natural factors. Through biomass burning, vegetation fires can emit large quantities of greenhouse gases and air pollutants such as CO2, CO, NOx, CH4, non-methane hydrocarbons, and other chemical species, including aerosols that can affect air quality and health at both local and regional scales. Moreover, biomass burning pollutants can travel long distances and impact regional climate. Therefore, quantifying vegetation fires and their impacts is critical at different spatial scales. This book includes contributions from renowned researchers from the USA and South/ Southeast Asia on various fire-related topics. The contributions resulted from several international meetings and workshops organized in Asia as part of the South/ Southeast Asia Research Initiative (SARI) under the NASA Land-Cover/Land-Use Change Program. The book is divided into three sections, each containing multiple contributions: a) Mapping, Monitoring, and Modeling of Vegetation Fires, b) Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Air Pollution, and c) Air Pollution Modeling and Decision Support Systems. These sections are preceded by an introductory chapter by the editors that highlights the latest satellite-derived fire statistics and the current fire situation in S/SEA. This book will be a valuable resource for remote sensing scientists, geographers, ecologists, atmospheric, climate, environmental scientists, including policymakers, and all who wish to advance their knowledge on vegetation fires and emissions in South/Southeast Asia.

This volume contains a selection of scientific papers which were presented at an international workshop held in Wengen, Switzerland, in September 1998. A number of state-of-the-art papers are presented, which discuss scientific, technological and socio-economic issues related to large forest fires which occur both in the tropics and in the extra-tropical regions. The book comprises some of the most recent research conducted in the context of the large forest fires which occurred in South-East Asia, Australia, Brazil and Africa in late 1997 and early 1998; while essentially due to human interference, these particular fires appear to have been enhanced by the particularly strong El Niño episode which prevailed at that time. This interdisciplinary volume addresses a number of topics, in particular the contribution to climatic change by the greenhouse gases and aerosols emitted by large forest fires, the monitoring of fires both during and after combustion through satellite remote-sensing techniques, and numerical studies of the perturbation to the climate system using general circulation climate models.