SPATIAL HETEROGENEITY OF FACTORS INFLUENCING FIRE OCCURRENCE IN THE HULUNBUIR GRASSLANDS OF INNER MONGOLIA, CHINA

In this paper, both environmental and anthropogenic variables into GWLR model are incorporated to study the distribution of grassland fire occurrence in Hulunbuir over the period 2001-2015. The results show that mean annual temperature, elevation, distance to nearest settlement, distance to nearest road, and distance to nearest agricultural area are correlated with grassland fire occurrence, while these explanatory factors are not spatially stationary in the whole study area. Thus, the consideration of non-stationarity in fire modeling is important to better understand fire regimes and to more efficiently prioritize critical area to fire occurrence.