Following the light: using 'brightspots' to avoid future Amazonian fires

应对普遍存在的热带森林火灾的现实是我们这个时代紧迫的社会和环境挑战。热带火灾排放出不成比例的碳，通过烟雾危害公众健康和人类福祉，并破坏经济。减少它们的发生，特别是在干旱期间，有可能为人类和自然带来好处，并有助于实现气候承诺。然而，领先的自上而下的方法已经失败，并强调需要综合方法，将自然科学和社会科学的分析方法和规模结合起来，为管理反应提供信息。这个项目将首次把亮点的概念应用到热带火灾中。亮点是结果比预测的好，显然是不可能的，而黑点的结果比预期的更糟（容易发生火灾），而转型地点是历史上容易发生火灾的轨迹已经转变为成功故事的地方。在亚马逊地区找到这种亮点类型的地点将告诉我们，尽管有很高的火灾风险，一些内生的当地反应是如何成功的，并提供必要的证据，帮助亚马逊远离火灾多发的未来。该项目提供了一个重要和及时的机会，利用当地的知识、经验和实践为适应和缓解政策提供信息。在一系列研究问题的指导下，学生将首先使用地理空间分析和回归模型来识别、定位和量化亚马逊流域的亮点类型。这种基于桌面的分析将指导野外工作地点的选择，这些地点将在野外季节使用社会科学和参与式方法进行访问，以了解解释火灾流行的过程。获得资助的学生将得到一个由领先的跨学科研究人员和非学术合作伙伴组成的团队的支持，这些合作伙伴位于亚马逊地区降低风险的最前沿（CEMADEM）。该奖学金将提供一个特殊的跨学科培训计划，并将受益于东英吉利大学充满活力的研究中心，包括环境正义小组、关键十年DTC和廷德尔中心。

Responding to the reality of pervasive tropical forest fires is an urgent social and environmental challenge of our time. Tropical fires emit disproportionate quantities of carbon, harm public health and human well-being through smoke exposure, and damage the economy. Reducing their incidence, especially during droughts, has the potential to deliver benefits to people and nature, as well as contributing to climate commitments. Yet leading top-down approaches have failed, and underscore the need for integrated approaches that combine methods and scales of analysis across the natural and social science to inform management responses. This project will take the notion of brightspots to the case of tropical fire for the first time. Brightspots are sites where outcomes are better than predicted, apparently defying the odds, whilst darkspots have worse than expected outcomes (are fire-prone), and transformation sites are where historic fire-prone trajectories have transformed in to success stories. Locating sites in Amazonia across this brightspot typology will inform our understanding of how, despite high fire-risks, some endogenous local responses have been successful and provide evidence needed to contribute towards steering the Amazon away from a fire-prone future. This project offers an important and timely opportunity to inform adaptation and mitigation policies with locally grounded knowledge, experience and practice. Guided by a set of research questions, the student will first use geospatial analysis and regression modelling to identify, locate and quantify the brightpot typology across Amazonia. This desk-based analysis will guide selection of fieldwork sites, that will be visited in a field season using social science and participatory methods to understand the processes that explain fire prevalence. The funded student will receive support from a team of leading interdisciplinary researchers and non-academic partners at the forefront of risk-reduction in the Amazon (CEMADEM). The studentship comes with an exceptional cross-disciplinary training programme and will benefit from the dynamic research centres at UEA, including the Environmental Justice group, the Critical Decade DTC, and the Tyndall Centre.