MAPPING OF SUSCEPTIBILITY TO FOREST FIRES IN NIASSA PROVINCE, MOZAMBIQUE

Abstract

Forest fires are one of the agents that contribute to the reduction of forests. However, it is essential to know what conditions and favors its occurrence, to facilitate the mapping of susceptible areas and allow the development of specific programs for critical regions. The objective of this study was to prepare a forest fire susceptibility map for Niassa province, using the Geographic Information System (GIS). With the aid of the AcrGIS software version 10.8, fire susceptibility maps were produced referring to slope, slopes, altitude, road proximity, land use and occupation, population density and precipitation. These parameters were integrated by a summation, in which through a pairwise comparison hue using the Hierarchical Analysis Process (AHP) method, each variable was given a weight. The weights obtained were: Land Use and Occupation (0.22), Slope (0.15), Altitude (0.12), Slope Orientation (0.11), Demographic Density (0.17), Road Proximity (0.09) and Precipitation (0.14) with a consistency rate of 8%. The results reveal that low susceptibility represents an area of 2,297.2 km2 (2%), moderate susceptibility with 56,452.89 km2 (47%), high and very high susceptibility cover an area of 48,539.84 km2 (41%) and 8,415 km2 (10%) respectively. The most susceptible regions are: Lichinga City, Chimbonila district, Cuamba, Mandimba, Mecanhelas and Ngauma. In this way, it can be concluded by stating that the selected variables and the weights assigned, as well as the method applied, are efficient for the elaboration of the map of susceptibility to the occurrence of forest fires.