Religious Affiliation Modulates Weekly Cycles of Cropland Burning in Sub-Saharan Africa

Vegetation burning is a common land management practice in Africa, where fire is used for hunting, livestock husbandry, pest control, food gathering, cropland fertilization, and wildfire prevention. Given such strong anthropogenic control of fire, we tested the hypotheses that fire activity displays...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	PloS one 2015-09, Vol.10 (9), p.e0139189-e0139189
Main Authors:	Pereira, José M C, Oom, Duarte, Pereira, Paula, Turkman, Antónia A, Turkman, K Feridun
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Aerosols Africa South of the Sahara Agricultural land Agriculture - methods Animal husbandry Anthropogenic factors Anthropology, Cultural Atmospheric chemistry Atmospheric models Biomass Biomass burning Burning Conservation of Natural Resources Crops, Agricultural Ecosystem Ecosystems Emissions Fertilization Fire ecology Fires Geography Humans Hunting Independent variables Land management Land use Land use planning Livestock Methods Models, Theoretical Muslims Pest control Rangelands Regression analysis Regression models Religion Spatial data Vegetation Weather forecasting Wildfires
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Summary:	Vegetation burning is a common land management practice in Africa, where fire is used for hunting, livestock husbandry, pest control, food gathering, cropland fertilization, and wildfire prevention. Given such strong anthropogenic control of fire, we tested the hypotheses that fire activity displays weekly cycles, and that the week day with the fewest fires depends on regionally predominant religious affiliation. We also analyzed the effect of land use (anthrome) on weekly fire cycle significance. Fire density (fire counts.km-2) observed per week day in each region was modeled using a negative binomial regression model, with fire counts as response variable, region area as offset and a structured random effect to account for spatial dependence. Anthrome (settled, cropland, natural, rangeland), religion (Christian, Muslim, mixed) week day, and their 2-way and 3-way interactions were used as independent variables. Models were also built separately for each anthrome, relating regional fire density with week day and religious affiliation. Analysis revealed a significant interaction between religion and week day, i.e. regions with different religious affiliation (Christian, Muslim) display distinct weekly cycles of burning. However, the religion vs. week day interaction only is significant for croplands, i.e. fire activity in African croplands is significantly lower on Sunday in Christian regions and on Friday in Muslim regions. Magnitude of fire activity does not differ significantly among week days in rangelands and in natural areas, where fire use is under less strict control than in croplands. These findings can contribute towards improved specification of ignition patterns in regional/global vegetation fire models, and may lead to more accurate meteorological and chemical weather forecasting.
ISSN:	1932-6203 1932-6203