Mid-term effects of a thin-only treatment on fuel complex, potential fire behaviour and severity and post-fire soil erosion protection in fast-growing pine plantations

Arellano-Pérez, Stéfano; Castedo‐Dorado, Fernando; Álvarez‐González, Juan Gabriél; Alonso-Rego, Cecilia; Vega, José A.; Ruiz-González, Ana Daría

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2020.117895

Cited by 13 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 76 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Traditionally, maritime pine is managed in pure stands. The preference for even-aged stands is related to easier management, promotion of wood quantity and quality [2,40,[47][48][49][50][51], and disturbances, mainly fire or harvest events that usually result in one regeneration cohort shortly after disturbance, if seed is available [41][42][43][44].…”

Section: Forest Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maritime Pine, Its Biological and Silvicultural Traits for the Basis of Natural Resources: An Overview

Fonseca¹,

Gonçalves²,

Lousada³

2022

Conifers - Recent Advances

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Aiton) is a forest tree species with a high representation in southwestern European countries, in particular Portugal, Spain, and France. The species traits and their flexibility and plasticity are of importance both for timber and to the sustainability of the forest systems. Extensive research has been made on the maritime pine systems and productions. The aim of this study is to review the state-of-the art on the knowledge of the species, their forest systems, and their productions, to identify vulnerabilities and to summarize tools to help its management. The specific objectives of this review are: i) characterizing maritime pine, its distribution, genetic material and provenances, the biotic and abiotic disturbances, the diversity and sustainability of its forest systems; (ii) its management, encompassing the silvicultural systems and practices; (iii) to list existing growth models, simulators and decision support systems; and (iv) present information on wood technology, including sylvotechnology, wood properties, and their use.

show abstract

Section: Forest Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maritime Pine, Its Biological and Silvicultural Traits for the Basis of Natural Resources: An Overview

Fonseca¹,

Gonçalves²,

Lousada³

2022

Conifers - Recent Advances

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Fuel loading as a stand-alone metric is not entirely adequate for predicting wildland fire behavior. Fuel spatial arrangement, vertical and horizontal continuity, composition, and moisture content also greatly influence wildland fire behavior , Mohr et al 2010, Thomas et al, 2010, Keane 2015, Rowell et al 2016, Cruz et al 2017, Arellano-Pérez et al 2020). The addition of fuel arrangement and structural assessments in the field and their inclusion in BehavePlus may have impacted the predicted, fire behavior values, likely increasing the values of the C predicted fire behavior parameters due to increased horizontal continuity of the fuel bed.…”

Section: Tablementioning

confidence: 99%

“…If commercial timber harvests can reduce fuel loads and generate income, wildfire risk might be mitigated and incentivized on both private and public lands. In a study of pine plantations in northwestern Spain, Arellano-Pérez et al (2020) found that the likelihood of active crown fires could be reduced with thinning treatments alone. However, fire severity and soil erosion were not greatly reduced with thinning alone.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term impacts of silvicultural treatments on wildland fuels and modeled fire behavior in the Ridge and Valley Province, Virginia (USA)

Hahn

Coates

Aust

et al. 2021

Forest Ecology and Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Active forest management operations, such as regeneration harvests, can reduce hazardous fuel loads and alter fuel structure, potentially minimizing extreme wildfire conditions while maintaining ecosystem services, such as wildlife habitat and water quality. Regeneration harvests of differing intensities (clearcut, high-retention shelterwood, and low-retention shelterwood) were first applied between 1995 and 1996 to three sites on the George Washington-Jefferson National Forest in the Ridge and Valley Province of Virginia, USA. Over two decades after the clearcut was conducted and 11-12 years after the overwood was removed in the shelterwood stands, woody debris, litter, and duff masses and depths were quantified. One-hour fuel loads were greater in clearcut units than in high-retention shelterwood, low-retention shelterwood, or control units. Ten-hour fuel loads were greater in clearcut and low-retention shelterwood units than in high-retention shelterwood and control units. No significant differences in 100-hour fuels were observed between treatments. Control units contained more rotten and total 1000-hour fuels than all other treatments. The total woody debris load was less in the clearcut and high-retention shelterwood than in the low-retention shelterwood and control. High-retention shelterwood woody fuel depth was greater than clearcut woody fuel depth. Litter and duff loads were less in treated units than in the control units. Total fuel load (woody fuel load + litter load + duff load) was greater in the control than the silvicultural treatments. Litter depth did not differ between treatments, while duff depth was greater in the control than in the treated units. Using the computer modeling software, BehavePlus 6.0.0, these alterations to fuel loads and depths led to increased values in the control units for six fire behavior parameters. Predicted surface flame length in the low-retention shelterwood was the only modeled value that was not less than control values. Overall, these results indicated that harvest intensity and timing may have long-term effects on down and dead woody fuels, forest floor depth, and potential fire behavior. Clearcutting reduced fire behavior most, followed by the highretention shelterwood system. The potential differences in slash and debris generated by varying shelterwood systems may impact long-term fuel and fire dynamics.

show abstract

“…Therefore, only the control treatment and heavy thinning were analyzed for surface fire-related variables (68 sample plots), and the complete trials were used to analyze the canopy fire-related variables (102 sample plots). The thinning trials are described in further detail by Arellano-Pérez et al [60].…”

Section: Study Area and Sample Plotsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The mean shrub height (h shrub ) was calculated by weighting the heights of understory species according to the respective cover, and the fuel strata gap (FSG) was calculated as the difference between CBH and h shrub . The total understory load (Wshrub) and litter and duff layer fuel load (WLFH) were calculated using the equations proposed by Arellano-Pérez et al [60] for these types of fuels in pine stands in Galicia. Finally, the downed woody debris load (Wdebris) was estimated by the planar transect method [64,65].…”

Section: Understory Fuel Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating Stand and Fire-Related Surface and Canopy Fuel Variables in Pine Stands Using Low-Density Airborne and Single-Scan Terrestrial Laser Scanning Data

et al. 2021

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this study, we used data from a thinning trial conducted on 34 different sites and 102 sample plots established in pure and even-aged Pinus radiata and Pinus pinaster stands, to test the potential use of low-density airborne laser scanning (ALS) metrics and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) metrics to provide accurate estimates of variables related to surface and canopy fires. An exhaustive field inventory was carried out in each plot to estimate the main stand variables and the main variables related to fire hazard: surface fuel loads by layers, fuel strata gap, surface fuel height, stand mean height, canopy base height, canopy fuel load and canopy bulk density. In addition, the point clouds from low-density ALS and single-scan TLS of each sample plot were used to calculate metrics related to the vertical and horizontal distribution of forest fuels. The comparative performance of the following three non-parametric machine learning techniques used to estimate the main stand- and fire-related variables from those metrics was evaluated: (i) multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS), (ii) support vector machine (SVM), and (iii) random forest (RF). The selection of the best modeling approach was based on a comparison of the root mean square error (RMSE), obtained by optimizing the parameters of each technique and performing cross-validation. Overall, the best results were obtained with the MARS techniques for data from both sensors. The TLS data provided the best results for variables associated with the internal characteristics of canopy structure and understory fuel but were less reliable for estimating variables associated with the upper canopy, due to occlusion by mid-canopy foliage. The combination of ALS and TLS metrics improved the accuracy of estimates for all variables analyzed, except the height and the biomass of the understory shrubs. The variability demonstrated by the combined use of both types of metrics ranged from 43.11% for the biomass of duff litter layers to 94.25% for dominant height. The results suggest that the combination of machine learning techniques and metrics derived from low-density ALS data, drawn from a single-scan TLS or a combination of both metrics, may represent a promising alternative to traditional field inventories for obtaining valuable information about surface and canopy fuel variables at large scales.

show abstract

Mid-term effects of a thin-only treatment on fuel complex, potential fire behaviour and severity and post-fire soil erosion protection in fast-growing pine plantations

Cited by 13 publications

References 76 publications

Maritime Pine, Its Biological and Silvicultural Traits for the Basis of Natural Resources: An Overview

Maritime Pine, Its Biological and Silvicultural Traits for the Basis of Natural Resources: An Overview

Long-term impacts of silvicultural treatments on wildland fuels and modeled fire behavior in the Ridge and Valley Province, Virginia (USA)

Estimating Stand and Fire-Related Surface and Canopy Fuel Variables in Pine Stands Using Low-Density Airborne and Single-Scan Terrestrial Laser Scanning Data

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About