| 26 April 2025
In France, year 2022 witnessed severe drought conditions, leading to very low flows in rivers starting in the spring and widespread wildfire occurrences in summer. In recent years, similar occurrences of consecutive drought and wildfire hazards have been observed in other regions of the world, including Greece, Canary Islands, Canada, California, Australia, etc. The fact that the drought and fire hazards occur together is no coincidence since they are physically linked: in a nutshell, drought conditions generally start by a deficit of precipitation leading to dry soils, resulting in decreasing flows in rivers and the development of fire-prone conditions.
The video below explores how the spatial extent of drought and fire conditions has evolved in the past and will evolve in the future in France, under a changing climate. To this aim we monitor three variables describing various facets of drought and fire conditions: the Soil Wetness Index (SWI), the Fire Weather Index (FWI) and the amount of streamflow in rivers (Q). The music in the video has been created by applying the sonification technique of parameter mapping to these three variables. Since dry soils are driving the occurrence of low flows and fire-prone conditions, the variable SWI is assigned to the rhythm section (bass and drums). Variables FWI and Q are controlling two pianos, which you can hear in the left and right ear if you’re using headphones.
The first part of this video highlights several years that have been notoriously hot and dry: 1976, 2003 and the year 2022 discussed at the beginning of this post, which corresponds to the most widespread event during the observation period 1959-2023. Simulations from a climate model replace observations from 2024 onward. 2022 remains the most noticeable event for a couple of decades, but by the mid-2040s several similar or slightly worst events start occurring on a regular basis. By the 2060s, the 2022 event is dwarfed by generalized drought and fire conditions that start occurring very regularly and may last for 3 to 4 months in a row.
Author: Ben
Codes and data: browse on GitHub