CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Matisheva, Ayaulym |
|---|---|
| Title | Wildfires in Kazakhstan: Investigating Wildfire Dynamics in Kazakhstan between 2001 and 2022 |
| Summary | The study investigates the wildfire dynamics in Kazakhstan, comparing the burned areas between the two decades: 2001-2011 and 2012-2022. The wildfire literature in the context of Central Asia is scarce. So, the aim of the study is to fill the gap and explore if there were any changes in the wildfire patterns in Central Asia in the past 20 years. To accomplish this, satellite data were used, namely, the data from Fire_cci v5.1 and MODIS MCD64A1. Two different satellite imagery products were used to cross-verify the results. The results showed that when comparing the two decades, the overall burned area decreased by almost half. Moreover, when it comes to vegetation types, grasslands were the one that burned the most. The study gives two reasons behind these trends. It suggests that greater burned area in the first period might be explained by massive outmigration from the rural areas and the rapid decrease in livestock numbers in the 1990s. It further claims that stricter land management policies and fire management initiatives taken in the second decade might explain, why the burned area decreased in the second decade. The findings show that land management plays crucial role in wildfire management, and that effective policies can reduce fire hazard in the steppes. |
| Supervisor | Lagutov, Victor; Krasovskiy , Andrey |
| Department | Environment Sciences and Policy MSc |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/matisheva_ayaulym.pdf |
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