Imperial College London
Alternate

Dr Yiannis Kountouris

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Centre for Environmental Policy

Senior Lecturer
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 9316i.kountouris

 
 
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Location

 

106Weeks BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Kountouris:2020:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138044,
author = {Kountouris, Y},
doi = {10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138044},
journal = {Science of The Total Environment},
title = {Human activity, daylight saving time and wildfire occurrence},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138044},
volume = {727},
year = {2020}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Wildfires shape landscapes and ecosystems, affecting health and infrastructure. Understanding the complex interactions between social organization, human activity and the natural environment that drive wildfire occurrence is becoming increasingly important as changing global environmental conditions combined with the expanding human-wildland interface, are expected to increase wildfire frequency and severity. This paper examines the anthropogenic drivers of wildfire, and the relationship between the organization of human activity in time and wildfire occurrence focusing on the effects of transitions into and out of Daylight Saving Time (DST). DST transitions shift activity in relation to natural wildfire risk within a solar day, induce changes in the time allocated to wildfire-causing activities and disrupt sleep patterns. The paper estimates short and medium run effects of DST-induced changes in the temporal organization of human activity through a Regression Discontinuity Design with time as the running variable and Fixed Effects models, using data from over 1.88 million non-prescribed ignitions recorded in the contiguous US over 23years. Estimates suggest that DST has a quantitatively and statistically significant immediate and medium-run effect on wildfire occurrence. Wildfire occurrence jumps by around 30% in the immediate aftermath of transitions into DST, adding about 98 human-caused wildfires across the contiguous US per year, while the transition's effect is detectable for 3weeks. Transitions induce within-day temporal displacement of wildfires in a pattern compatible with the shifting of human activity mechanism, while the result cannot be attributed exclusively on disruptions in sleep patterns. Naturally arising lightning-strike wildfires do not respond to changes in civil time, while the results are robust to changes in assumptions. Results suggest that wildfire policy should account for the temporal organization of human activity.
AU  - Kountouris,Y
DO  - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138044
PY  - 2020///
SN  - 0048-9697
TI  - Human activity, daylight saving time and wildfire occurrence
T2  - Science of The Total Environment
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138044
UR  - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969720315576?via%3Dihub
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/78008
VL  - 727
ER  -
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