Sustainability Perspectives on Fire and Smoke

Dear Colleagues,

As a critical sustainability concern, combinations of climate change, as well as deforestation, fire suppression, and other human activities, have altered landscapes at an ecosystem scale. One example is the increased fuel build-up, and diversions from natural fire regimes, observed in particular fire-adapted forest ecosystems. Another example is deforestation of rainforests. As one consequence of various landscape scale changes, it is well-known that wildfires and forest fires, as well as agricultural fires, are generally increasing in frequency and severity around the globe—and, as the old adage goes, where there is fire, there is smoke. How does consideration of smoke and its consequences (e.g., health impacts, pollution), though, get integrated into larger sustainability issues? That is what we want to explore in this Special Issue of Sustainability.

In some cases, smoke emissions are attached to increased catastrophic wildfire events (which might be low-probability but high-severity), and in other cases, emissions are from purposeful prescribed burning patterns (e.g., to reduce agricultural crop residues, or the build-up of small diameter forest materials), or from slash-and-burn activities to clear forests. Smoke dispersion from all these varying events may interact with sustainability efforts in different ways; however, they all can have significant impacts on local and regional air quality, thereby exacerbating air pollution concerns. Such concerns may have their own unique geographical characteristics in the wildland–urban interface, or highly-populated urban centers, or in developing country contexts. There is a large and growing literature on the human health impacts of wildfires and agricultural fires (e.g., mortality, cardiovascular and respiratory morbidity, pharmaceutical drug usage, infant and children’s health), which suggests that smoke events can be associated with significant economic costs to society, both now and in the future. However, there are likely other impacts to society from these events (e.g., on labor markets, productivity, educational outcomes/attainment). To understand the “true” social economic burden of wildfires, forest fires, and agricultural fires, a more holistic accounting of their multidimensional impacts to society is required. The growing regional and global issues surrounding “Fire and Smoke” need to be addressed from a variety of critical sustainability perspectives.

This Special Issue seeks original, policy-relevant research articles that will provide new insights and expand our knowledge of the total social and economic burden of wildfires and agricultural fires, and how this integrates into sustainability considerations (e.g., ecosystem restoration, forest and agricultural land management, and community adaptation). Potential topical areas might include (but are not limited to):

- Fire and smoke impacts to labor markets, wages or retirement decisions;

- Integration of smoke impacts into land management decision support systems

- Fire and smoke impacts to worker productivity;

- Fire and smoke impacts to educational outcomes;

- Fire and smoke impacts to health outcomes not previously considered in the literature;

- Happiness or life satisfaction effects of smoke;

- Nonmarket valuation of smoke impacts;

- The nexus of sustainable forest management (including smoke) and wildfire risk;

- The nexus of sustainable agricultural land management (including smoke) and the burning of crop residuals;

- Community adaptation to smoke; and

- Social equity and distributional considerations.

Research papers dedicated to methodological advancements or those that use improved data (ranging from precise local monitoring, to remote sensing and satellite information) or econometric/statistical techniques to improve upon existing knowledge are also welcomed. We also welcome papers from both developed and developing country contexts.

Prof. Dr. Robert P. Berrens
Assi. Prof. Dr. Benjamin A. Jones
Guest editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• wildfires
• agricultural fires
• smoke
• economic/social impacts
• health