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Technical Report
unige:32231 
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Biomass fires: preliminary estimation of ecosystems global economic losses |
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| Publication | Genève: UNEP/GRID-Geneva, 2013 | |
| Abstract | Globally, biomass fires are burning yearly (in average) between 3 and 4.5 million km2 depending on years and sensor used. Africa is by far the main region affected. Biomass fires affect both local and global environment. With impacts to local biodiversity, soil, as well as produce large amount of Green House Gases affecting the global climate. Methodologies for evaluating the value of ecosystems (and related services) are still in their preliminary stage and there are large level of uncertainties and margins of errors. Despite these gaps in knowledge, even using a conservative approach based on minimal values lead to colossal economic losses bringing a new light on the economics of wild fires impacts. Globally the economic direct losses are between several dozen to hundreds of billions each year. To these values, the cost of the recovery period should be added, the global economic losses are likely to exceeds hundreds billion US$ per year. We cannot leave such level of uncertainties associated with such potential high economic losses. It is therefore a priority to improve the methodologies so that margins of errors are largely decreased. | |
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| Research groups | TIGERS Pôle/Institut Gouvernance de l'environnement et développement territorial (PI-GEDT) Global Resource Information Database (GRID) ISE Pôle Sciences ISE Biodiversité | |
| Citation (ISO format) | CHATENOUX, Bruno, PEDUZZI, Pascal. Biomass fires: preliminary estimation of ecosystems global economic losses. 2013 https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:32231 |
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