Role of fire in the global land water budget during the Twentieth Century due to changing ecosystems

It is tightly coupled with climate, ecosystems, carbon and water cycles, and human activities. Through biomass burning and fire-induced plant-tissue mortality, current and historical fires significantly affect terrestrial ecosystems, which can alter hydrology fluxes.

This study provides the first quantitative assessment and understanding about the influence of fire on the global land water budget due to changing terrestrial ecosystems during the twentieth century. This is done by quantifying the difference between twentieth-century fire-on and fire-off simulations using the Community Earth System Model (CESM). Results show that fire significantly reduces the annual evapotranspiration (ET) over the global land by 0.6 x 10(3) km(3) yr(-1) and increases global total of runoff in almost the same quantity, while having almost no impact (0.0 x 10(3) km(3) yr(-1)) on annual precipitation amount.