资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

Wildfires in forest ecosystems have been well studied, while wildfires in rangelands ecosystems have received less attention. This study evaluated temporal trends of large wildfires on rangelands in western US from 1984 to 2017, using the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) product (captured wildfires ≥405 ha in size in western US) and Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) analysis. The results showed a significant increase (more than 5‐fold) in area of rangeland burned by large wildfires, but generally no significant trends in proportions of areas burned at different levels of severity. The trends for all rangelands, in total area burned and in areas burned at different levels of severity, were most similar to the trends for herbaceous‐dominated rangelands but largely different from the trends for shrub‐dominated rangelands. These findings can aid in the development of management strategies for anticipating and reducing wildfire risk and enhancing rangeland conservation and sustainability.