Forests and forestry--this is one of the basic research lines and a longtime cooperative effort between the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Tohoku University of Japan. In November of 2011, the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk was the venue of a seminar on forest monitoring. Taking part were Professors Zun-Ichi Kudo and Masachi Ito. Lyudmila Yudina of the newspaper Nauka v Sibiri (Science in Siberia) has interviewed Dr. Vyacheslav Kharuk, deputy head of the Sukachev Forestry Research Institute. We follow with details.

Effective woodlands monitoring and forest fire fighting and prevention was the subject they discussed.

Forest fires inflict great ecological and economic damage; they are a mighty source of the emission of hothouse gases (CO₂ by and large), a factor that speeds up regional and global climate warming. Overall, higher temperatures are favorable for Siberian forestlands. There has been some increment in the population of silvestral plants moving into the zone of mountain and polar tundra plains; tree stands are becoming more closed and dense. Rising air temperatures, however, mean a higher fire hazard, much around in the past and now, too. For instance, during the Little Glacial Age

Forest fire.

(14th to 19th cent.) fires in Evenkia's leaf-bearing forests were half as frequent as today. High temperatures contribute to accumulation of combustible stuff in forest-clad areas--ready to blaze up at any moment. Yet another sequel to a possible climate warming: Siberian forests, the carbon dioxide (CO₂) consumers, are morphing into a CO₂ pool.

But the human factor, Dr. Kharuk stressed, is the main cause of forest fires. Here in this country and elsewhere at the global level it is the chief culprit responsible for 80 percent of calamities. In these last few decades, what with the occurrence of abnormally hot spells, there has been an uptrend both in the frequency and in the areas of taiga forest fires. Fire-hazard periods have become longer, too. The same picture is true of Canada, a country second in the territory of boreal (northern) woodlands. So we should think hard how to find methods of coping with this problem. Today we are getting most of the information to this effect from outer space monitoring. The best device used for this purpose is the MODIS sensor on board the US orbiter Terra. The data it sends back account for online monitoring all over Russia's territory.

The two Japanese professors, who attended the Krasnoyarsk forum, suggested using smoke plumes over the forest canopy. That is to say, stifle a fire at the very start, when it is still too weak to be registered by temperature-sensitive elements. Smoke plumes and aerosols are well registered in the visible region of the spectrum; they are registered by apparatuses like Terra/MODIS, too. It is planned to bring the space resolution of the cosmic "eye" down to 0.5 meters and put into orbit a cluster satellites that would scan a target territory several times a day. It is also important to improve aerosol detection methods. A zone of such monitoring will take in most significant stands, including those close to population centers. The planned scenario comprises three progressive stages: 1) methodic approaches; 2) a prototype, its realization and testing; 3) practical, regular use of an early warning and fire detection system.

Russian scientists are directly involved in synthesizing space data analysis algorithms, including detection of aerosols. They are improving methods of spotting fires in the IR region, and taking measurements essential for data management. This project, if realized, will make it possible to bring down discharges of hothouse gases and thus save our woods.

Yevgeny Ponomarev, a senior research fellow (Forest Monitoring Laboratory, Sukachev Forestry Institute), made a report on a remote orbital monitoring of fires. Their classification according to the probability of occurrence, the spread of fire-ravaged stands, and subsequent rehabilitation--all that is the result of space database processing. His institute, Dr. Ponomarev said, has been in this research since 1994, that is as soon as it became possible to pick and process satellite-supplied data. The methods and approaches thus developed will be needed for practical action on early detection of forest fires.

A. Rubtsov of Siberian Federal University came up with data supplied by space observation and from alternative sources. This information will allow to develop ecological models of the present condition of forest stands and the fire prevention situation throughout Russia's territory.

The ideas advanced at the Krasnoyarsk forum aim at assessing the effect of regional ecosystems on the global climate, in particular, what relates to the ongoing changes in the tundra plains. These are topical problems, for the current rise in mean annual temperatures in the permafrost zone may activate biogeochemical processes and speed up the liberation of hothouse gases conserved in the perpetually frozen ground. However, the contribution of permafrost ecosystems to the global and continental carbon dioxide balance has been but little studied so far.

L. Yudina, Forest under Control, Nauka v Sibiri (Science in Siberia), No. 48, 2011