The influence of climate change on bushfire fuels in Victoria

Funding period: 2021-2024

Funding agency: Country Fire Authority

Project leader, researchers and collaborators: Prof Matthias Boer (Lead); Dr Mingkai Jiang (co-lead), Prof Ben Smith, Dr Rachael Nolan, Dist Prof Belinda Medlyn, Dr Assaf Inbar, Assoc Prof Owen Price (UoW), Em Prof Ross Bradstock

Project summary:  Bushfire is one of the major factors shaping the landscape of Australia. Our understanding of how the bushfire regime interacts with climate and vegetation is uncertain, especially in the face of future climate change. This project aims to use physics-aware machine learning and dynamic vegetation modelling to produce spatially-explicit mapping of potential changes in bushfire fuel types and fuel hazard for Victoria under different scenarios of future climate change. The outcome of this project will allow fire management agencies in Victoria to make more appropriate planning and investment to better prepare for the anticipated changes, and to take more targeted actions to mitigate the likely impacts.