Methodological approach to assess the socio-economic vulnerability to wildfires in Spain

Román, María Victoria; Oyarzún, Diego Azqueta; Rodrígues, Marcos

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2012.07.001

Cited by 47 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…According to the predicted changes in the UFI and AFI interfaces, these fires will probably affect the nearby protected natural areas northwest and southeast of Madrid city and its zone of socioeconomic influence. According to Román et al (2013), the vegetation regeneration time will be high, more than 40 years, for these natural areas due to the maturity, reproductive strategies, and environmental conditions of these forest areas. This risk will be aggravated due to more extreme summer droughts, typical of Mediterranean conditions under climate change.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They significantly affect key aspects of ecosystem functioning and determine, in part, the vulnerability of ecosystems and populations to natural, economic, or sociopolitical perturbations Román et al 2013). Changes in LULC patterns directly affect fire regimes as there is a close relationship between LULC and fuel types, which drive fire ignition and propagation (Chuvieco et al 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Impacts of future land use/land cover on wildfire occurrence in the Madrid region (Spain)

Gallardo¹,

Gómez²,

Vilar³

et al. 2015

Reg Environ Change

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This paper assesses the relative importance of socioeconomic factors linked to fire occurrence through the simulation of future land use/land cover (LULC) change scenarios in the Madrid region (Spain). This region is a clear example of the socioeconomic changes that have been occurring over recent decades in the European Mediterranean as well as their impact on LULC and fire occurrence. Using the LULC changes observed between 1990 and 2006 as a reference, future scenarios were run up to 2025 with the conversion of land use and its effects model. Simultaneously, the relationship between LULC arrangement (interfaces) and historical fire occurrence was calculated using logistic regression analysis and used to quantify changes in future fire occurrence due to projected changes in LULC interfaces. The results revealed that it is possible to explain the probability of fire occurrence using only variables obtained from LULC maps, although the explanatory power of the model is low. In this context, border areas between some LULC types are of particular interest (i.e., urban/forest, grassland/forest and agricultural/forest interfaces). Results indicated that expected LULC changes in Euro-Mediterranean regions, particularly given the foreseeable increase in the wildland-urban interface, will substantially increase fire occurrence (up to 155 %). This underlines the importance of future LULC scenarios when planning fire prevention measures.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of future land use/land cover on wildfire occurrence in the Madrid region (Spain)

Gallardo¹,

Gómez²,

Vilar³

et al. 2015

Reg Environ Change

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…According to Díaz-Delgado et al (2002) we measured resilience with reference to aboveground biomass. Instead of a qualitative evaluation of fire damage, resilience enables us to quantitatively estimate the economic losses attributable to the loss of access to some natural resources like timber, mushroom gathering or hunting as it measures the period of time during which the resources are not available (Rodrigues et al, 2014;Román et al, 2013). According to Sá-Torres (2013), post-fire resilience can be linked to biodiversity (e.g.…”

Section: U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

Burn severity influence on post-fire vegetation cover resilience from Landsat MESMA fraction images time series in Mediterranean forest ecosystems

Fernández–Manso

Quintano

Roberts

2016

Remote Sensing of Environment

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Mediterranean ecosystems are adapted to recurrent forest fires by having regeneration mechanisms that overcome the immediate effects of fire. However, the increasing frequency of fires in most European Mediterranean countries is challenging the natural regrowth capability of these ecosystems. In this context, monitoring post-fire vegetation recovery is a priority for forest management and soil erosion control. In this work, a 13-year series (1999-2011) of Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM)/Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM +) data was used to model post-fire vegetation recovery as a function of burn severity and to quantify post-fire resilience as a measure of vegetation cover regrowth. We evaluated a large forest fire located in Spain that burned approximately 30 km 2 of Pinus pinaster Ait. in August 1998. 88 field plots of four burn severity levels (unburned, low, moderate and high) were measured in the field a year after the fire. As a variable representative of vegetation, we chose the shade normalized green vegetation fraction image (SGV) obtained by applying Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis (MESMA) to the original Landsat TM/ETM + images. The SGV values were extracted for the 88 field plots and, after performing a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), a Fisher's Least Significant Difference (LSD) test allowed us to estimate resilience of vegetation cover as the number of post-fire years exhibiting a statistically significant difference between burned and unburned areas. Next, SGV values were referenced to unburned control plots values and the vegetation recovery index (VRI) was defined. The evolution in time curve of VRI for low, moderate and highly fire affected vegetation was fit using trend models (specifically, an exponential trend for VRI in high and moderate burn severity levels; a linear trend for low burn severity level, Root Mean Square Error, RMSE = 0.18, 0.13, and 0.09, respectively). We observed that vegetation cover affected by low severity fire recovered to its original state after 7 years, and vegetation cover affected by moderate severity recovered after 13 years. Vegetation affected by high severity fire was estimated to recover after 20 years. We conclude that VRI time series based on multitemporal MESMA fractions from Landsat data can be considered a valuable indicator of the post-fire vegetation cover recovery. Its temporal evolution represented post-fire vegetation cover regrowth adequately and facilitated the estimate of vegetation cover resilience in Mediterranean forests.

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“…Moreover, it is worth mention that such usage of local wood chips could also have the economic and social benefits associated to wildfires' avoidance and environmental preservation. The consequences of such wildfires are important economic costs and losses to society comparable with those of big catastrophes such as hurricanes derived from fire extinction and damage relief, property losses and tourism affectations [159]; as well environmental damages such as CO 2 release and increased risk of erosion in hilly areas [39], particulates emissions [159] or ecosystems services affectations [160]. Including these avoided costs of wildfires into the economic study of biomass-based conversion technologies, these technologies would have lower electricity generation costs thus being more competitive than they are at present.…”

Section: Costs Of Technologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of micro- and small-scale technologies to produce electricity and heat from Mediterranean forests׳ wood chips

González

Riba

Puig

et al. 2015

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

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Methodological approach to assess the socio-economic vulnerability to wildfires in Spain

Cited by 47 publications

References 21 publications

Impacts of future land use/land cover on wildfire occurrence in the Madrid region (Spain)

Impacts of future land use/land cover on wildfire occurrence in the Madrid region (Spain)

Burn severity influence on post-fire vegetation cover resilience from Landsat MESMA fraction images time series in Mediterranean forest ecosystems

Review of micro- and small-scale technologies to produce electricity and heat from Mediterranean forests׳ wood chips

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