Forty Years of Wildland Urban Interface Growth and Its Relation With Wildfires in Central-Western Chubut, Argentina

Abstract

Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) areas are rapidly expanding worldwide. In many regions of the world, this expansion could be explained by the increasing possibilities of telecommuting and developing home-office work, while at the same time living in, or surrounded by wilderness areas of magnificent beauty. However, growth and development of these WUIs are still not well dimensioned and regulated, especially in fire prone ecosystems. Over the last two decades, an increasingly number of megafires occurred in these WUI areas in different regions of the world. Recently, big megafires occurred in WUIs located around towns in the western Andean-Patagonian region of Argentina. In this study, we analyzed the evolution of the WUI and its relationship with wildfires around cities and towns located in the northwestern part of Chubut province of Argentina. The studied region covers 324,823 ha and includes the cities of Esquel and Trevelin, and other small villages. Our objectives were to (i) map the current WUI, (ii) quantify changes occurred in the WUI in the last 40 years around the main cities of the region, and (iii) analyze the relationships among WUIs, vegetation types, and wildfire occurrence. We mapped the distribution of WUI using spatially explicit information on housing density derived from censuses and high-resolution imagery from 1981/1982 and 2021, and land cover data. The current WUI covered 8% of the study area, however it has 97% of the houses. Between 1981 and 2021, the WUI area increased by 80%, especially in the southern part of our study region. Finally, information on wildfires distribution revealed that 65% of the ignition points of the recent fires in the region occurred within the WUI. Most of the vegetation burned were herbs, sub-shrubs and woodlands. WUI expansion in our study area appears to be constrained by terrain features (slopes and accessibility), but not by vegetation characteristics. Our study suggests that continuing, unplanned housing expansion in wilderness areas without appropriate vegetation management will likely increases wildfire risk and human environmental conflicts further. Effective land use planning and wildfire management are crucial for sustainable housing expansion in western Patagonia.

Evaluation of Handheld Mobile Laser Scanner Systems for the Definition of Fuel Types in Structurally Complex Mediterranean Forest Stands

“…Mediterranean environments are particularly vulnerable to wildfires, primarily due to the climatic conditions and the structural complexity of Mediterranean forest ecosystems [3]. Furthermore, these areas may be more exposed to fire in the future due to climate change [4][5][6][7], recent socioeconomic processes such as the abandonment of fields [8][9][10], and the increase in buildings in the wildland-urban interface and in rural areas adjacent to forest stands [11][12][13]. Improvements in wildland fire management can help reduce the number of wildfires [14] and bolster their resilience to current and future impacts.…”

Outcomes for an arboreal folivore after rehabilitation and implications for management

“…Our results confirm the importance of this recommendation; koalas released further from their original capture site moved greater distances in the first 30 days (and further from their release site) following their release and, in an urban/peri-urban environment, increased movement may increase the probability of an adverse event to occur (e.g., vehicle collision or dog attack). Similar threats are likely to impact a range of species as the wildlife urban interface continues to grow across many countries 86 , 87 . However, we found a weak effect where the risk of mortality decreased when koalas were released further from their capture site, suggesting that rehabilitators were effective in assessing risk and changing release location accordingly.…”

Assessing the Accuracy of the Wildland–Urban Interface Index in Portuguese Rural Villages’ Context: A Case Study of the 2017 Pedrógão Grande Wildfire

“…The term WUI is not standardised globally, there are discrepancies regarding the size of areas considered representative, the safe distance between forests and settlements, and the combination of data to be considered when assessing it [13][14][15]. Beyond these questions, it is recognised that WUI areas worldwide tend to increase due to the expansion of urbanisation into forests and deficiencies in fuel management [16][17][18]. This trend dangerously exposes more people to wildfires, who are often unprepared to deal with such events [19] or incapable of doing so [18,20].…”