Spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of high-frequency grassland fire area in Mongolian Plateau based on a space-time cube

Grassland fires in the eastern part of the Mongolia Plateau occur frequently and spread widely. Therefore, they pose a great threat to the development of animal husbandry. In this study, based on MCD64A1 remote sensing data for burned areas in the high-frequency grassland fire area of Mongolian Plateau from 2001 to 2020, a spatio-temporal evolution model of grassland fires was mined using the space-time cube model. The results showed that, on the whole, grassland fires gradually increased from southwest to northeast, and the area of fire occurrence, based on the border line as the boundary, was obviously different. The fires were mainly distributed in Mongolia, with obvious interannual variation, and the grassland fires peaked every 3～4 years. The spatial and temporal autocorrelation of the high-frequency grassland fire aggregation cube was complex, and the regularity of fire event was poor. This causes difficulties in fire prevention and disaster prevention. Individual points with obviously high or low frequencies of grassland fires were mainly distributed in densely populated towns. Grassland fires in the eastern and western borders of Hulun Buir City, the northern region of Kent Province, the southwest corner, the northeast and southeast regions of Oriental Province, and the junction with Xin Barag Left Banner were discontinuous. However, the frequency of occurrence was relatively high recently, and thus, we need to be on high alert. Using a space-time cube to mine the spatiotemporal evolution pattern of grassland fires in high-frequency areas of Mongolian Plateau can provide an auxiliary decision aid for accurately and quickly identifying the frequent locations and spatio-temporal evolution characteristics of grassland fires, and enable grid management of grassland fires, patrol and dispatch for managers, the prediction of grassland fires, and a reduction in fire frequency.