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Diurnal variation models for fine fuel moisture content in boreal forests in China

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Abstract

Studying diurnal variation in the moisture content of fine forest fuel (FFMC) is key to understanding forest fire prevention. This study established models for predicting the diurnal mean, maximum, and minimum FFMC in a boreal forest in China using the relationship between FFMC and meteorological variables. A spline interpolation function is proposed for describing diurnal variations in FFMC. After 1 day with a 1 h field measurement data testing, the results indicate that the accuracy of the sunny slope model was 100% and 84% when the absolute error was < 3% and < 10%, respectively, whereas the accuracy of the shady slope model was 72% and 76% when the absolute error was < 3% and < 10%, respectively. The results show that sunny slope and shady slope models can predict and describe diurnal variations in fine fuel moisture content, and provide a basis for forest fire danger prediction in boreal forest ecosystems in China.

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Acknowledgements

We are also grateful to the staff of the Nanwenghe Forest Ecological Research Station for their assistance with fieldwork, and to both the Northern Forest Fire Management Key Laboratory (State Forestry and Grassland Bureau) and the National Innovation Alliance (Wildland Fire Prevention and Control Technology of China) for supporting this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Sustainable Forest Ecosystem Management-Ministry of Education, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, 150040, China

    Ran Zhang, Haiqing Hu & Tongxin Hu

  2. College of Science, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, 150040, China

    Zhilin Qu

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  1. Ran Zhang
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  2. Haiqing Hu
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Correspondence to Zhilin Qu or Tongxin Hu.

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Project funding: This research was financially supported by the Special Fund for Forest Scientific Research in the Public Welfare (No. 201404402) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Nos. C2572014BA23 and 2572019BA03).

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Corresponding editor: Yu Lei.

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Zhang, R., Hu, H., Qu, Z. et al. Diurnal variation models for fine fuel moisture content in boreal forests in China. J. For. Res. 32, 1177–1187 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11676-020-01109-7

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