Mark A Cochrane
Biographic Data
| ID | 1528020 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mark A Cochrane |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mark A |
| FAMILY NAME | Cochrane |
| SIGNATURE | COCHRANE M A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4573-568X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 12 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Aboveground biomass and carbon dynamics over 13 years at an Indonesian tropical peat dome: Findings from field data
Southeast Asian tropical peat swamp forests are globally significant, carbon-rich ecosystems, yet have experienced widespread degradation through drainage, fire and logging. Research monitoring how forest aboveground biomass (AGB) and aboveground carbon (AGC) respond to these factors is limited. Here, we present field-based AGB and AGC estimates from an Indonesian tropical peat dome over thirteen years. We compare AGB estimates generated through …
Anthropogenic factors in a forest and peatland fire danger rating system in South Sumatra
In an effort to prevent forest and land fires, Indonesia has implemented its fire danger rating system (FDRS). Currently, the FDRS is based upon the Canadian system, which is driven by only weather parameters. However, fires in Indonesia are primarily caused by human activities with most of them occurring on peatlands. Thus, it is necessary to integrate these factors in the development of the next generation FDRS to increase the precision and acc…
Characterizing and communicating uncertainty: Lessons from Nasa’s Carbon Monitoring System
Navigating uncertainty is a critical challenge in all fields of science, especially when translating knowledge into real-world policies or management decisions. However, the wide variance in concepts and definitions of uncertainty across scientific fields hinders effective communication. As a microcosm of diverse fields within Earth Science, NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) provides a useful crucible in which to identify cross-cutting concep…
Why estimates of the peat burned in fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan are unreliable and why it matters
Most recent estimates of carbon emissions from Indonesia's peatland fires are based on extrapolation from a narrow base of empirical evidence, raising concerns about the reliability of fire emissions estimates. Measurements of peat fires during ENSO periods are not representative of fires in other years, yet they underlie many estimates of peat fire emissions in ‘normal’ years. Errors may enter into estimates of area burned, quantity of peat comb…
Deforestation, plantation-related land cover dynamics and oil palm age-structure change during 1990–2020 in Riau Province, Indonesia
The expansion of plantations, such as oil palm, in Indonesia has caused large-scale deforestation. Loss of tropical forest, in particular peatland forest, is a major ecological and environmental threat as well as a source of atmospheric carbon emissions. Understanding the spatio-temporal dynamics of plantation expansion may illuminate pathways to reduce deforestation while maintaining high yields in existing plantations. Beyond mapping forest con…
Spatial patterns and drivers of smallholder oil palm expansion within peat swamp forests of Riau, Indonesia
Protecting the tropical peat swamp forests in Southeast Asia is critical for addressing global sustainability challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss. However, more than half of these forests have been lost since 1990 due to the rapid expansion of drainage-based agriculture and forestry. Within the oil palm sector, the number of regional smallholder oil palm plantings on peat soils has risen quickly. These activities are challengi…
Drainage canal impacts on smoke aerosol emissions for Indonesian peatland and non-peatland fires
Indonesia has experienced frequent fires due to the lowering of groundwater levels caused by drainage via extensive canal networks for agricultural development since the 1970s. However, the impact of canals on fire emissions is still poorly understood. Here we investigate canal impacts on smoke aerosol emissions for Indonesian peatland and non-peatland fires by quantifying the resulting changes of smoke aerosol emission coefficient (Ce) that repr…
Beyond slash‐and‐burn: The roles of human activities, altered hydrology and fuels in peat fires in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia
Near‐annual landscape‐scale fires in Indonesia's peatlands have caused severe air pollution, economic losses, and health impacts for millions of Southeast Asia residents. While the extent of fires across the peatland surface has been widely attributed to widespread peatland drainage for plantation agriculture, fires that transition from surface into sub‐surface soil‐based fires are the source of the most dangerous air pollution. Yet the mechanism…
Evaluating accuracy of four Modis-derived burned area products for tropical peatland and non-peatland fires
Satellite-based burned area products are accurate for many regions. However, only limited assessments exist for Indonesia despite extensive burning and globally important carbon emissions. We evaluated the accuracy of four MODIS-derived (moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer) burned area products (MCD45A1 collection 5.1, MCD64A1 (collection 5.1 and 6), FireCCI51), and their sensitivity to burned-area size and temporal window length used f…
Oil palm land conversion in Pará, Brazil, from 2006–2014: Evaluating the 2010 Brazilian Sustainable Palm Oil Production Program
Global models of biophysical suitability for oil palm consistently rank Brazil as having the greatest potential for expansion, with estimates as high as 238 Mha of suitable lands. In 2010, Brazil launched the Sustainable Palm Oil Production Program (SPOPP) to incentivize oil palm development without deforestation on as much as 30Mha. Here we examine oil palm expansion before and after the SPOPP?s launch. In Par ́a, the major oil palm producing st…
Human exposure and sensitivity to globally extreme wildfire events
Future changes in climatic water balance determine potential for transformational shifts in Australian fire regimes
Most studies of climate change effects on fire regimes assume a gradual reorganization of pyrogeographic patterns and have not considered the potential for transformational changes in the climate-vegetation-fire relationships underlying continental-scale fire regimes. Here, we model current fire activity levels in Australia as a function of mean annual actual evapotranspiration (E) and potential evapotranspiration (E ), as proxies for fuel produc…
Measurement of inter- and intra-annual variability of landscape fire activity at a continental scale: The Australian case
Climate dynamics at diurnal, seasonal and inter-annual scales shape global fire activity, although difficulties of assembling reliable fire and meteorological data with sufficient spatio-temporal resolution have frustrated quantification of this variability. Using Australia as a case study, we combine data from 4760 meteorological stations with 12 years of satellite-derived active fire detections to determine day and night time fire activity, fir…
Climate-induced variations in global wildfire danger from 1979 to 2013
Climate strongly influences global wildfire activity, and recent wildfire surges may signal fire weather-induced pyrogeographic shifts. Here we use three daily global climate data sets and three fire danger indices to develop a simple annual metric of fire weather season length, and map spatio-temporal trends from 1979 to 2013. We show that fire weather seasons have lengthened across 29.6 million km 2 (25.3%) of the Earth’s vegetated surface, res…
Roads, deforestation, and the mitigating effect of protected areas in the Amazon
Security Force Collusion in Northern Ireland 1969–1999: Substance or Symbolism
In order to thwart and prevent terrorism the State is compelled to use all of the covert capabilities at its disposal in order to protect the society it serves. One of its most effective weapons is the use of human intelligence. Often acquired through secret relationships with terrorists or those with the ability to access preemptive intelligence. This important work is contentious for any democratic society as such practices and relationships, s…
O Futuro Da Amazônia: Modelos Para Prever as Conseqüências Da Infraestrutura Futura Nos Planos Plurianuais
Desde 1996 o planejamento de investimentos do governo brasileiro tem sido organizado em planos quadrianuais: Brasil em Ação (1996-1999), Avança Brasil (2000-2003), PPA [Plano Plurianual] (2004-2007), PAC [Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento] (2008-2011), e PAC-2 (2012-2015). Cada plano tem incluído uma longa lista de rodovias, barragens e outros grandes projetos de infraestrutura na Amazônia. Vários desses projetos têm sido incluídos em uma sér…
The human dimension of fire regimes on Earth: The human dimension of fire regimes on Earth
Humans and their ancestors are unique in being a fire-making species, but 'natural' (i.e. independent of humans) fires have an ancient, geological history on Earth. Natural fires have influenced biological evolution and global biogeochemical cycles, making fire integral to the functioning of some biomes. Globally, debate rages about the impact on ecosystems of prehistoric human-set fires, with views ranging from catastrophic to negligible. Unders…
Carbon emissions from deforestation and forest fragmentation in the Brazilian Amazon
Forest-fragmentation-related edge effects are one of the major causes of forest degradation in Amazonia and their spatio-temporal dynamics are highly influenced by annual deforestation patterns. Rapid biomass collapse due to edge effects in forest fragments has been reported in the Brazilian Amazon; however the collective impacts of this process on Amazonian carbon fluxes are poorly understood. We estimated biomass loss and carbon emissions from …
Countering terrorism through the use of informants: The Northern Ireland experience
Governments when faced with countering terrorism have a number of options at their disposal. One such option is the collection of intelligence, and human intelligence can provide valuable information on terrorist groups and their activities. 'Tout', 'informer', 'informant', 'source', 'agent', 'grass', 'mole' and 'nark' are some of the labels used to describe what law enforcement terms a Covert Human Intelligence Source. They are in fact individua…
Fire in the Earth System
Burn, Baby, Burn Wildfires can have dramatic and devastating effects on landscapes and human structures and are important agents in environmental transformation. Their impacts on nonanthropocentric aspects of the environment, such as ecosystems, biodiversity, carbon reserves, and climate, are often overlooked. Bowman et al. (p. 481 ) review what is known and what is needed to develop a holistic understanding of the role of fire in the Earth syste…
Synergisms among Fire, Land Use, and Climate Change in the Amazon
The Amazon is being rapidly transformed by fire. Logging and forest fragmentation sharply elevate fire incidence by increasing forest desiccation and fuel loads, and forests that have experienced a low-intensity surface fire are vulnerable to far more catastrophic fires. Satellites typically detect thermal signatures from 40 000 to 50 000 separate fires in the Amazon each year, and this number could increase as new highways and infrastructure exp…
Fire science for rainforests
Priority Areas for Establishing National Forests in the Brazilian Amazon
Veríssimo, A., M. A. Cochrane, C. Souza Jr. and R. Salomão 2002. Priority Areas for Establishing National Forests in the Brazilian Amazon. Conservation Ecology 6(1):4. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-00377-060104
The Future of the Brazilian Amazon
Synergisms among Fire, Land Use, and Climate Change in the Amazon
The Amazon is being rapidly transformed by fire. Logging and forest fragmentation sharply elevate fire incidence by increasing forest desiccation and fuel loads, and forests that have experienced a low-intensity surface fire are vulnerable to far more catastrophic fires. Satellites typically detect thermal signatures from 40 000 to 50 000 separate fires in the Amazon each year, and this number could increase as new highways and infrastructure exp…
O Futuro Da Amazônia: Modelos Para Prever as Conseqüências Da Infraestrutura Futura Nos Planos Plurianuais
Desde 1996 o planejamento de investimentos do governo brasileiro tem sido organizado em planos quadrianuais: Brasil em Ação (1996-1999), Avança Brasil (2000-2003), PPA [Plano Plurianual] (2004-2007), PAC [Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento] (2008-2011), e PAC-2 (2012-2015). Cada plano tem incluído uma longa lista de rodovias, barragens e outros grandes projetos de infraestrutura na Amazônia. Vários desses projetos têm sido incluídos em uma sér…
Countering terrorism through the use of informants: The Northern Ireland experience
Governments when faced with countering terrorism have a number of options at their disposal. One such option is the collection of intelligence, and human intelligence can provide valuable information on terrorist groups and their activities. 'Tout', 'informer', 'informant', 'source', 'agent', 'grass', 'mole' and 'nark' are some of the labels used to describe what law enforcement terms a Covert Human Intelligence Source. They are in fact individua…
Large-scale impoverishment of Amazonian forests by logging and fire
The Future of the Brazilian Amazon
Priority Areas for Establishing National Forests in the Brazilian Amazon
Veríssimo, A., M. A. Cochrane, C. Souza Jr. and R. Salomão 2002. Priority Areas for Establishing National Forests in the Brazilian Amazon. Conservation Ecology 6(1):4. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-00377-060104
Fire science for rainforests
Synergisms among Fire, Land Use, and Climate Change in the Amazon
The Amazon is being rapidly transformed by fire. Logging and forest fragmentation sharply elevate fire incidence by increasing forest desiccation and fuel loads, and forests that have experienced a low-intensity surface fire are vulnerable to far more catastrophic fires. Satellites typically detect thermal signatures from 40 000 to 50 000 separate fires in the Amazon each year, and this number could increase as new highways and infrastructure exp…
Fire in the Earth System
Burn, Baby, Burn Wildfires can have dramatic and devastating effects on landscapes and human structures and are important agents in environmental transformation. Their impacts on nonanthropocentric aspects of the environment, such as ecosystems, biodiversity, carbon reserves, and climate, are often overlooked. Bowman et al. (p. 481 ) review what is known and what is needed to develop a holistic understanding of the role of fire in the Earth syste…
The human dimension of fire regimes on Earth: The human dimension of fire regimes on Earth
Humans and their ancestors are unique in being a fire-making species, but 'natural' (i.e. independent of humans) fires have an ancient, geological history on Earth. Natural fires have influenced biological evolution and global biogeochemical cycles, making fire integral to the functioning of some biomes. Globally, debate rages about the impact on ecosystems of prehistoric human-set fires, with views ranging from catastrophic to negligible. Unders…
Carbon emissions from deforestation and forest fragmentation in the Brazilian Amazon
Forest-fragmentation-related edge effects are one of the major causes of forest degradation in Amazonia and their spatio-temporal dynamics are highly influenced by annual deforestation patterns. Rapid biomass collapse due to edge effects in forest fragments has been reported in the Brazilian Amazon; however the collective impacts of this process on Amazonian carbon fluxes are poorly understood. We estimated biomass loss and carbon emissions from …
Countering terrorism through the use of informants: The Northern Ireland experience
Governments when faced with countering terrorism have a number of options at their disposal. One such option is the collection of intelligence, and human intelligence can provide valuable information on terrorist groups and their activities. 'Tout', 'informer', 'informant', 'source', 'agent', 'grass', 'mole' and 'nark' are some of the labels used to describe what law enforcement terms a Covert Human Intelligence Source. They are in fact individua…
Security Force Collusion in Northern Ireland 1969–1999: Substance or Symbolism
In order to thwart and prevent terrorism the State is compelled to use all of the covert capabilities at its disposal in order to protect the society it serves. One of its most effective weapons is the use of human intelligence. Often acquired through secret relationships with terrorists or those with the ability to access preemptive intelligence. This important work is contentious for any democratic society as such practices and relationships, s…
O Futuro Da Amazônia: Modelos Para Prever as Conseqüências Da Infraestrutura Futura Nos Planos Plurianuais
Desde 1996 o planejamento de investimentos do governo brasileiro tem sido organizado em planos quadrianuais: Brasil em Ação (1996-1999), Avança Brasil (2000-2003), PPA [Plano Plurianual] (2004-2007), PAC [Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento] (2008-2011), e PAC-2 (2012-2015). Cada plano tem incluído uma longa lista de rodovias, barragens e outros grandes projetos de infraestrutura na Amazônia. Vários desses projetos têm sido incluídos em uma sér…
Roads, deforestation, and the mitigating effect of protected areas in the Amazon
Climate-induced variations in global wildfire danger from 1979 to 2013
Climate strongly influences global wildfire activity, and recent wildfire surges may signal fire weather-induced pyrogeographic shifts. Here we use three daily global climate data sets and three fire danger indices to develop a simple annual metric of fire weather season length, and map spatio-temporal trends from 1979 to 2013. We show that fire weather seasons have lengthened across 29.6 million km 2 (25.3%) of the Earth’s vegetated surface, res…
Future changes in climatic water balance determine potential for transformational shifts in Australian fire regimes
Most studies of climate change effects on fire regimes assume a gradual reorganization of pyrogeographic patterns and have not considered the potential for transformational changes in the climate-vegetation-fire relationships underlying continental-scale fire regimes. Here, we model current fire activity levels in Australia as a function of mean annual actual evapotranspiration (E) and potential evapotranspiration (E ), as proxies for fuel produc…
Measurement of inter- and intra-annual variability of landscape fire activity at a continental scale: The Australian case
Climate dynamics at diurnal, seasonal and inter-annual scales shape global fire activity, although difficulties of assembling reliable fire and meteorological data with sufficient spatio-temporal resolution have frustrated quantification of this variability. Using Australia as a case study, we combine data from 4760 meteorological stations with 12 years of satellite-derived active fire detections to determine day and night time fire activity, fir…
Human exposure and sensitivity to globally extreme wildfire events
Oil palm land conversion in Pará, Brazil, from 2006–2014: Evaluating the 2010 Brazilian Sustainable Palm Oil Production Program
Global models of biophysical suitability for oil palm consistently rank Brazil as having the greatest potential for expansion, with estimates as high as 238 Mha of suitable lands. In 2010, Brazil launched the Sustainable Palm Oil Production Program (SPOPP) to incentivize oil palm development without deforestation on as much as 30Mha. Here we examine oil palm expansion before and after the SPOPP?s launch. In Par ́a, the major oil palm producing st…
Beyond slash‐and‐burn: The roles of human activities, altered hydrology and fuels in peat fires in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia
Near‐annual landscape‐scale fires in Indonesia's peatlands have caused severe air pollution, economic losses, and health impacts for millions of Southeast Asia residents. While the extent of fires across the peatland surface has been widely attributed to widespread peatland drainage for plantation agriculture, fires that transition from surface into sub‐surface soil‐based fires are the source of the most dangerous air pollution. Yet the mechanism…
Evaluating accuracy of four Modis-derived burned area products for tropical peatland and non-peatland fires
Satellite-based burned area products are accurate for many regions. However, only limited assessments exist for Indonesia despite extensive burning and globally important carbon emissions. We evaluated the accuracy of four MODIS-derived (moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer) burned area products (MCD45A1 collection 5.1, MCD64A1 (collection 5.1 and 6), FireCCI51), and their sensitivity to burned-area size and temporal window length used f…
Drainage canal impacts on smoke aerosol emissions for Indonesian peatland and non-peatland fires
Indonesia has experienced frequent fires due to the lowering of groundwater levels caused by drainage via extensive canal networks for agricultural development since the 1970s. However, the impact of canals on fire emissions is still poorly understood. Here we investigate canal impacts on smoke aerosol emissions for Indonesian peatland and non-peatland fires by quantifying the resulting changes of smoke aerosol emission coefficient (Ce) that repr…
Why estimates of the peat burned in fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan are unreliable and why it matters
Most recent estimates of carbon emissions from Indonesia's peatland fires are based on extrapolation from a narrow base of empirical evidence, raising concerns about the reliability of fire emissions estimates. Measurements of peat fires during ENSO periods are not representative of fires in other years, yet they underlie many estimates of peat fire emissions in ‘normal’ years. Errors may enter into estimates of area burned, quantity of peat comb…
Deforestation, plantation-related land cover dynamics and oil palm age-structure change during 1990–2020 in Riau Province, Indonesia
The expansion of plantations, such as oil palm, in Indonesia has caused large-scale deforestation. Loss of tropical forest, in particular peatland forest, is a major ecological and environmental threat as well as a source of atmospheric carbon emissions. Understanding the spatio-temporal dynamics of plantation expansion may illuminate pathways to reduce deforestation while maintaining high yields in existing plantations. Beyond mapping forest con…
Spatial patterns and drivers of smallholder oil palm expansion within peat swamp forests of Riau, Indonesia
Protecting the tropical peat swamp forests in Southeast Asia is critical for addressing global sustainability challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss. However, more than half of these forests have been lost since 1990 due to the rapid expansion of drainage-based agriculture and forestry. Within the oil palm sector, the number of regional smallholder oil palm plantings on peat soils has risen quickly. These activities are challengi…
Characterizing and communicating uncertainty: Lessons from Nasa’s Carbon Monitoring System
Navigating uncertainty is a critical challenge in all fields of science, especially when translating knowledge into real-world policies or management decisions. However, the wide variance in concepts and definitions of uncertainty across scientific fields hinders effective communication. As a microcosm of diverse fields within Earth Science, NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) provides a useful crucible in which to identify cross-cutting concep…
Anthropogenic factors in a forest and peatland fire danger rating system in South Sumatra
In an effort to prevent forest and land fires, Indonesia has implemented its fire danger rating system (FDRS). Currently, the FDRS is based upon the Canadian system, which is driven by only weather parameters. However, fires in Indonesia are primarily caused by human activities with most of them occurring on peatlands. Thus, it is necessary to integrate these factors in the development of the next generation FDRS to increase the precision and acc…
Environmental Science (21 works) · Geography (21 works) · Fire effects on ecosystems (14 works) · Ecology (11 works) · Agroforestry (9 works) · Biology (9 works) · Ecology (9 works) · Ecosystem (9 works) · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management (8 works) · Geology (8 works)