edu.ucar.opensky::articles:27363 UCAR/NCAR - Library OpenSky Support PO Box 3000 Boulder CO 80307-3000 opensky@ucar.edu http://opensky.ucar.edu/ homepage pointOfContact 2025-12-24T18:51:50.795272 ISO 19115-2 Geographic Information - Metadata - Part 2: Extensions for Imagery and Gridded Data ISO 19115-2:2009(E) https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7668jfj https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MCD12Q1.006 https Related Dataset #1 MCD12Q1 MODIS/Terra+Aqua Land Cover Type Yearly L3 Global 500m SIN Grid V006 https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MCD43A3.006 https Related Dataset #2 MCD43A3 MODIS/Terra+Aqua BRDF/Albedo Daily L3 Global - 500m V006 https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MCD64A1.061 https Related Dataset #3 MODIS/Terra+Aqua Burned Area Monthly L3 Global 500m SIN Grid V061 https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD13Q1.006 https Related Dataset #4 MOD13Q1 MODIS/Terra Vegetation Indices 16-Day L3 Global 250m SIN Grid V006 https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD44B.006 https Related Dataset #5 MOD44B MODIS/Terra Vegetation Continuous Fields Yearly L3 Global 250m SIN Grid V006 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10703310 https Related Dataset #6 Worldwide Unified Wildland-Urban Interface (WUWUI) database https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7941460 https Related Dataset #7 Map of the global wildland-urban interface Global expansion of wildland-urban interface (WUI) and WUI fires: insights from a multiyear worldwide unified database (WUWUI) 2024-04-01T00:00:00Z publication https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7668jfj https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad31da Tang, Wenfu author He, Cenlin author Emmons, Louisa K. author Zhang, J. author UCAR/NCAR - Library publisher Fires in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) are an important issue globally. To understand the change of WUI, we develop a 9 km worldwide unified wildland-urban interface database for 2001-2020 with Random Forest models and satellite data. We find that WUI has been increasing in all populated continents from 2001 to 2020 and the global relative increase is 24%, with the largest relative increase (similar to 59%) over Africa. Global total fire counts decrease by 10% from 2005 to 2020, whereas the WUI fraction of fire counts increases by 23%. The global total burned area decreases by 22% from 2005 to 2020, whereas the WUI fraction of burned area increases by 35%. These are mainly due to the expansion of WUI area. On all the populated continents, the WUI fractions of fire counts are higher than the WUI fractions of burned area, implying that WUI fires tend to have smaller sizes than wildland fires. We also project future WUI changes for the years 2030 and 2040, together with the projection of future fire burned area under different shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP) scenarios in the Community Earth System Model version 2 (CESM2). The projected global WUI fraction (excluding Antarctica and the oceans) is 5.9% in 2040 compared to 4.8% in 2020. The global WUI fraction of burned area is projected to increase from now to 2040 under most scenarios analyzed in this study, unless the WUI area stays at the 2020 level together with the projected burned area under SSP4-4.5. This study is a first step to understanding the changes of WUI fires at the global scale and demonstrates a growing importance of WUI fires. The global multi-year WUI and WUI fire datasets developed in this study can facilitate future work quantifying the impacts of WUI fires on air quality and climate. UCAR/NCAR - Library OpenSky Support PO Box 3000 Boulder CO 80307-3000 opensky@ucar.edu http://opensky.ucar.edu/ homepage pointOfContact PDF Text theme Resource Type 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z publication Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. None eng geoscientificInformation