The wildland–urban interface (WUI) is where buildings and wildland vegetation meet or intermingle^1,2. It is where human–environmental conflicts and risks can be concentrated, including the loss of houses and lives to wildfire, habitat loss and fragmentation and the spread of zoonotic diseases³. However, a global analysis of the WUI has been lacking. Here, we present a global map of the 2020 WUI at 10 m resolution using a globally consistent and validated approach based on remote sensing-derived datasets of building area⁴ and wildland vegetation⁵. We show that the WUI is a global phenomenon, identify many previously undocumented WUI hotspots and highlight the wide range of population density, land cover types and biomass levels in different parts of the global WUI. The WUI covers only 4.7% of the land surface but is home to nearly half its population (3.5 billion). The WUI is especially widespread in Europe (15% of the land area) and the temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome (18%). Of all people living near 2003–2020 wildfires (0.4 billion), two thirds have their home in the WUI, most of them in Africa (150 million). Given that wildfire activity is predicted to increase because of climate change in many regions⁶, there is a need to understand housing growth and vegetation patterns as drivers of WUI change.

Wildfire risks to homes are increasing, especially in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), where wildland vegetation and houses are in close proximity. Notably, we found that more houses are exposed to and destroyed by grassland and shrubland fires than by forest fires in the United States. Destruction was more likely in forest fires, but they burned less WUI. The number of houses within wildfire perimeters has doubled since the 1990s because of both housing growth (47% of additionally exposed houses) and more burned area (53%). Most exposed houses were in the WUI, which grew substantially during the 2010s (2.6 million new WUI houses), albeit not as rapidly as before. Any WUI growth increases wildfire risk to houses though, and more fires increase the risk to existing WUI houses.

Animal movement patterns in space and time are a central aspect of animal ecology. Remotely-sensed environmental indices can play a key role in understanding movement patterns by providing contiguous, relatively fine-scale data that link animal movements to their environment. Still, implementation of newly available remotely-sensed data is often delayed in studies of animal movement, calling for a better flow of information to researchers less familiar with remotely-sensed data applications. Here, we reviewed the application of remotely-sensed environmental indices to infer movement patterns of animals in terrestrial systems in studies published between 2002 and 2013. Next, we introduced newly available remotely-sensed products, and discussed their opportunities for animal movement studies. Studies of coarse-scale movement mostly relied on satellite data representing plant phenology or climate and weather. Studies of small-scale movement frequently used land cover data based on Landsat imagery or aerial photographs. Greater documentation of the type and resolution of remotely-sensed products in ecological movement studies would enhance their usefulness. Recent advancements in remote sensing technology improve assessments of temporal dynamics of landscapes and the three-dimensional structures of habitats, enabling near real-time environmental assessment. Online movement databases that now integrate remotely-sensed data facilitate access to remotely-sensed products for movement ecologists. We recommend that animal movement studies incorporate remotely-sensed products that provide time series of environmental response variables. This would facilitate wildlife management and conservation efforts, as well as the predictive ability of movement analyses. Closer collaboration between ecologists and remote sensing experts could considerably alleviate the implementation gap. Ecologists should not expect that indices derived from remotely-sensed data will be directly analogous to field-collected data and need to critically consider which remotely-sensed product is best suited for a given analysis.

Land‐use change is a major cause of wildlife habitat loss. Understanding how changes in land‐use policies and economic factors can impact future trends in land use and wildlife habitat loss is therefore critical for conservation efforts. Our goal here was to evaluate the consequences of future land‐use changes under different conservation policies and crop market conditions on habitat loss for wildlife species in the southeastern United States. We predicted the rates of habitat loss for 336 terrestrial vertebrate species by 2051. We focused on habitat loss due to the expansion of urban, crop, and pasture. Future land‐use changes following business‐as‐usual conditions resulted in relatively low rates of wildlife habitat loss across the entire Southeast, but some ecoregions and species groups experienced much higher habitat loss than others. Increased crop commodity prices exacerbated wildlife habitat loss in most ecoregions, while the implementation of conservation policies (reduced urban sprawl, and payments for land conservation) reduced the projected habitat loss in some regions, to a certain degree. Overall, urban and crop expansion were the main drivers of habitat loss. Reptiles and wildlife species associated with open vegetation (grasslands, open woodlands) were the species groups most vulnerable to future land‐use change. Effective conservation of wildlife habitat in the Southeast should give special consideration to future land‐use changes, regional variations, and the forces that could shape land‐use decisions.

Public lands provide many ecosystem services and support diverse plant and animal communities. In order to provide these benefits in the future, land managers and policy makers need information about future climate change and its potential effects. In particular, weather extremes are key drivers of wildfires, droughts, and false springs, which in turn can have large impacts on ecosystems. However, information on future changes in weather extremes on public lands is lacking. Our goal was to compare historical (1950–2005) and projected mid‐century (2041–2070) changes in weather extremes (fire weather, spring droughts, and false springs) on public lands. This case study looked at the lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service across the conterminous United States including 501 ranger district units. We analyzed downscaled projections of daily records from 19 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 General Circulation Models for two climate scenarios, with either medium‐low or high CO₂− equivalent concentration (RCPs 4.5 and 8.5). For each ranger district, we estimated: (1) fire potential, using the Keetch‐Byram Drought Index; (2) frequency of spring droughts, using the Standardized Precipitation Index; and (3) frequency of false springs, using the extended Spring Indices. We found that future climates could substantially alter weather conditions across Forest Service lands. Under the two climate scenarios, increases in wildfire potential, spring droughts, and false springs were projected in 32–72%, 28–29%, and 13–16% of all ranger districts, respectively. Moreover, a substantial number of ranger districts (17–30%), especially in the Southwestern, Pacific Southwest, and Rocky Mountain regions, were projected to see increases in more than one type of weather extreme, which may require special management attention. We suggest that future changes in weather extremes could threaten the ability of public lands to provide ecosystem services and ecological benefits to society. Overall, our results highlight the value of spatially‐explicit weather projections to assess future changes in key weather extremes for land managers and policy makers.