Collaborative Research: FIRE-NET: PALEOFIRE-AFRICA: Building a Data-Driven Network for Long-Term Fire-Ecosystem Resilience

Wildfires have become more intense and frequent globally, increasing risks to both natural and human environments. Africa has the highest incidence of fire on Earth today, yet further changes in patterns of fires, especially in places that historically have not burned, have led to complex hazards such as floods and destruction that make this region particularly vulnerable. Long-term information from the fossil record is necessary to understand and predict these changes, yet this data is currently not available in a centralized format that is usable by scientists or community-members to understand how fire changes over time. The overarching goal of this project is to support an open-science initiative that would create standards for past global fire data and mobilize data from Africa onto the Neotoma Paleoecology Database, a powerful platform for data access that integrates tools for detecting patterns in past fire data over time. This research helps improve scientists' ability to predict areas of greatest fire risk and the responses of environments to fire by building data resources supported by a connected, international network of experts. This project also provides opportunities for multiple graduate and undergraduate students to conduct interdisciplinary research. Additionally, this project develops educational tools to teach scientists of all levels to access and use past fire data to study impacts of fire to ecosystems. This project develops global standards for past fire data to launch a Global Paleofire Database on Neotoma. To do this, the project builds a Paleofire Network of global domain experts to mobilize data onto Neotoma and facilitate the use of new tools to address scientific questions about changes in fire over time and impacts to African ecosystems. This work features a series of in-person and virtual workshops and the development of educational materials to support the creation and use of this new resource within the community. The results are expected to contribute to the understanding of global and regional fire-ecosystem dynamics and the interactions between fire, ecosystems, and climate. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.