For a country with so few fires, the Netherlands has a surprisingly active group of fire researchers at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where fire processes are studied from local to global scale. We use field and satellite measurements in combination with biogeochemical and atmospheric modeling to improve our knowledge on the role of fire in the Earth system. We seek a better understanding of human and climatic drivers of fires, and their relationships with and feedbacks to global change.
We currently have ongoing field projects in sub-Saharan Africa and Siberia where we measure among others fuel loads, emission factors of trace gases, and carbon emissions. The following video gives some impressions from our field campaigns.
Such field measurements, in combination with measurements from other research groups, are important for the calibration and validation of global fire emissions products. Our group is co-developer of the Global Fire Emissions Database. In the map below, you see estimates of the annual mean carbon emissions from fires between 1997 and 2016.
Group members
Prof. Dr. Guido van der Werf
Dr. Sander Veraverbeke
Dr. Nick Schutgens
Dr. Thanos Tsikerdekis
Dr. Ivar van der Velde
Dr. Qirui Zhong
Clement Delcourt
Tom Eames
Thomas Hessilt
Rebecca Scholten
Dave van Wees
Roland Vernooij
