Institutions, Governance and Policy for Addressing Wildfire Challenges in a Changing Global Environment

野火是一种自然发生的生态过程，也是人类数千年来用来清理土地、处理废物和补充土壤养分的工具。尽管野火具有环境和经济功能，但它仍构成重大挑战，破坏生态系统服务，影响健康，破坏基础设施，增加温室气体排放等，特别是在不受控制或不加区别地使用时。制定有效和可持续的农业、森林和火灾管理政策，以提高对野火的复原力，同时在不断变化的全球环境中保持自然资源利用的好处，这需要更好地了解野火与人类活动之间的复杂关系。 该项目将研究社会组织、机构质量和社会经济变量在确定野火风险、发生和影响方面的重要性。候选人将探讨的具体问题包括：特殊利益集团在制定野火管理，适应和缓解政策方面的影响，深化野火管理国际合作的挑战和潜力，野火影响在受影响人群中的分布，以及国家和国家以下管辖区之间的竞争在确定野火结果中的作用。分析将在人为造成的全球环境变化给野火管理和火灾制度带来不确定性的背景下进行。 该项目将开始审查现有证据的影响，社会组织和机构的野火在全球生态系统。它还将评价现行政策的影响，并根据全球环境变化评估其缺点。然后，候选人将应用定性，统计和建模方法的组合，将经济学和政治学的见解与自然科学和工程相结合，以解决出现的问题。该项目将从大型社会、时间使用和经济调查中获取数据。它还将利用综合经济数据、土地使用、气象和地球观测数据。

Wildfire is a naturally occurring ecological process and a tool humans have used for millennia to clear land for development, dispose of waste and replenish soil nutrients. Despite its environmental and economic functions, wildfire poses significant challenges, disrupting ecosystem services, impacting on health, damaging infrastructure, and increasing greenhouse gas emissions among others, especially when uncontrolled or employed indiscriminately. Developing effective and sustainable agricultural, forest and fire management policies to improve resilience to wildfire while maintaining the benefits from natural resource use in the context of a changing global environment requires better understanding of the complex relationship between wildfire and human activity. This project will examine the importance of social organization, institutional quality and socioeconomic variables in determining wildfire risk, occurrence and impact. Specific questions the candidate will explore include: The influence of special interest groups in developing wildfire management, adaptation and mitigation policies, the challenges and potential for deepening international cooperation in wildfire management, the distribution of wildfire impacts across affected populations, and the role of competition between national and subnational jurisdictions in determining wildfire outcomes. The analysis will take place in the context of the uncertainties introduced in wildfire management and fire regimes by human-caused global environmental change. The project will begin by reviewing existing evidence on the impact of social organization and institutions on wildfire across global ecosystems. It will also evaluate the impact of existing policies and assess their shortcomings in the light of global environmental change. The candidate will then apply a combination of qualitative, statistical and modelling approaches, integrating insights from economics and political science, with natural science and engineering to address questions arising. The project will draw data from large social, time use and economic surveys. It will also utilize aggregate economic date, land use, meteorological and Earth Observation data.