South Asian wildfire in a changing climate and implications for risk assessment and forest management in Pakistan

Wildfires are becoming more intense and more frequent, with record-breaking fire seasons witnessed across the world in recent years. Amid rising global temperatures, the challenge to understand, communicate and ultimately reduce wildfire risk is critical. A recent report published by the United Nations Environment Programme noted a particular increase in fire prevalence across regions that were not previously considered fire-prone, including much of the Indian subcontinent. In Pakistan in particular, wildfire has gradually emerged as a significant environmental and societal threat, particularly across forested regions of Balochistan, Kashmir, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab. It is unclear how such threats will evolve under climate change, and to what extent Pakistan’s ongoing afforestation projects, such as the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami, take changes in risk into account.

This PhD project, led by doctoral researcher Zarmina Zahoor, aims to catalogue changes in fire regimes during recent decades, both in Pakistan and across the wider South Asian region. Additionally, the project will use the latest generation of climate model projections to quantity the extent to which fire risk will evolve in a warming world, and provide recommendations for risk assessment and forest management strategies.

The PhD studentship is co-funded by Coventry University and the National University of Sciences & Technology (Pakistan).