A Choice-Modeling Approach to Inform Policies Aimed at Reducing Wildfire Hazard through the Promotion of Fuel Management by Forest Owners

Abstract

The public-good nature of benefits of fuel management explains its current undersupply and the consequent wildfire blow. Policies to promote fuel management are thus required. To be cost-effective, they need to be informed by context-specific estimates of forest owners’ willingness-to-accept (WTA) for managing fuel. This study develops a choice-modeling approach to this problem. A survey of forest owners was undertaken in a wildfire-prone parish in Portugal. Respondents were asked about their willingness to subscribe different management contracts. A choice model was estimated and used to predict owners’ WTA for different fuel management commitments, and the marginal cost of reducing burned area in the parish. Estimated WTA amounts depend on owner type and commitment. Active owners demanded lower amounts for adopting silvicultural intervention commitments, and higher for those implying income foregone. The marginal cost of reducing burned area through fuel management increases with area, but it currently is yet smaller than the corresponding marginal benefit. Our results suggest that zero burned area is not an option and optimum fuel management lies beyond the current level. It will be shifted even beyond by targeted (key-spot) fuel management approaches; WTA differences across owners can be used to design context-specific policies that are more cost-effective.

Understanding the Impact of Different Landscape-Level Fuel Management Strategies on Wildfire Hazard in Central Portugal

“…Barreiro et al (2021) [36] provided a rough estimate of 30% of managed eucalypt stand area based on information from the forest owners association and a group of landowners. Santos et al, (2021) [34] estimated, for a sample of 221 owners, who managed 36% of the forest area, that 29% of the owners had treated fuels at least once in the last ten years. Both probably overestimate the area under frequent fuel treatment because there is much less information available regarding the spatial coverage of "absent" and "quasi-absent" FMAs.…”

“…Decreasing fuel hazard in the forest stands implies that fuel loads are regularly reduced with the indirect benefits of reducing potential fire size and intensity [52]. Based on meetings [36] and inquiries [34] with the forest association and landowners, we estimated that fuels were treated in around 40% of the non-industrial eucalypt area in Alvares, with a frequency that depends on the FMA. This corresponds to about 50% of the total eucalypt area, considering that fuel treatments in pulp industry areas are frequent and encompass a wide range of different treatment frequencies.…”

“…750 ha and 1400 ha, respectively. Only eucalypt stands were considered due to their coverage and interest for the landowners and the amount of available information [34]. The increases in the managed area were attained by replacing lower with higher intensity FMA, in different proportions depending on whether the increase was moderate or high [36].…”

“…Such a short fire cycle is driven by long-term demographic and land-use changes common to other parts of rural Portugal, namely population decrease and aging [32], abandonment of agricultural lands and expansion of forest and shrubland area [16] and increasing frequency of droughts and heatwaves as a result of climate change [33]. In addition, highly fragmented land ownership, with numerous small land properties owned by a very large number of landowners [34] with low-income levels, leads to undermanagement of forests and pasture areas. These environmental and socioeconomic factors have contributed to developing a fire regime dominated by large wildfires.…”

“…Here, we evaluated how different fuel treatment strategies can reduce wildfire hazard in Alvares. Parallel studies have addressed the other two pillars [34,36,37]. Two main strategies were analyzed: fuel breaks (linear treatment units) and dispersed random fuel treatments in the landscape (areal treatment units).…”