Our network

How NERC science can help

NERC science can assist wildfire management by improving our understanding of, for instance:

  • how climate change may change wildfire frequency and magnitude, and how fires affect climate
  • how past fire regimes were related to climate and land management
  • how wildfires affect air quality and impacts on human health
  • how wildfires impact water quality and the health of aquatic ecosystems
  • how wildfires affect carbon budgets
  • how fire ecology and fire as a socio-economic system explains the complex relationships between fire, vegetation, soil, climate and people, including how managed fire and wildfire affect biodiversity
  • how remote sensing from satellites, aircraft and drones (unmaned aerial vehicles) can be used to detect where and when fires occur, fire intensity and the severity of their impact on soil and vegetation

At the start of the project in 2012 NERC had invested approximately £4 million in fire-related research, much of it overseas. KfWf aims to show how we can learn from this fire-related research in other countries.

We also aim to show where new research is needed for the UK. The FIRES seminar series policy brief (PDF, 430KB) identified knowledge gaps for the UK.  New research is beginning to fill these gaps, but some stil remain. KfWf is working to facilitate new partnership research in these areas; see the 2015 Who Does What database of UK-based vegetation and fire researchers and News items on the UK Wildfire Research Group established in 2017.

Link to: Researcher Database

Benefits of project

For end-users:

  • Access to NERC-funded science and expertise;
  • Opportunities to influence the research agenda;
  • Add value to Incident Recording System (IRS) and other user data.

For researchers:

  • Benefit from end-users' expertise and data;
  • Increase the impact of your research;
  • Find out what new research end-users really want.

For both:

  • Links into other networks;
  • Build partnerships for funding applications;
  • Improve the evidence base for management, policy making and funding applications.