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

Benali, Akli; Sá, Ana C. L.; Pinho, João; Fernandes, Paulo M.; Pereira, José M. C.

doi:10.3390/f12050522

Cited by 43 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 39 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Despite the European Union's accession to the Paris Agreement [78] and commitment to drastically cut CO 2 emissions, severe wildfires continue to burn vast areas and pose a significant threat to the Mediterranean forests [4,79,80]. As a result, forest management works developing wildfire risk reduction plans have substantially increased in recent years [9,81,82], but the emission reduction effects are still largely unknown. However, sustainable forest management support for preserving carbon pools in fire-prone forest ecosystems lacks specific financing lines.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fostering Carbon Credits to Finance Wildfire Risk Reduction Forest Management in Mediterranean Landscapes

Alcasena

Rodrígues

Gelabert

et al. 2021

Land

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Despite the need for preserving the carbon pools in fire-prone southern European landscapes, emission reductions from wildfire risk mitigation are still poorly understood. In this study, we estimated expected carbon emissions and carbon credits from fuel management projects ongoing in Catalonia (Spain). The planning areas encompass about 1000 km2 and represent diverse fire regimes and Mediterranean forest ecosystems. We first modeled the burn probability assuming extreme weather conditions and historical fire ignition patterns. Stand-level wildfire exposure was then coupled with fuel consumption estimates to assess expected carbon emissions. Finally, we estimated treatment cost-efficiency and carbon credits for each fuel management plan. Landscape-scale average emissions ranged between 0.003 and 0.070 T CO2 year−1 ha−1. Fuel treatments in high emission hotspots attained reductions beyond 0.06 T CO2 year−1 per treated ha. Thus, implementing carbon credits could potentially finance up to 14% of the treatment implementation costs in high emission areas. We discuss how stand conditions, fire regimes, and treatment costs determine the treatment cost-efficiency and long-term carbon-sink capacity. Our work may serve as a preliminary step for developing a carbon-credit market and subsidizing wildfire risk management programs in low-revenue Mediterranean forest systems prone to extreme wildfires.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fostering Carbon Credits to Finance Wildfire Risk Reduction Forest Management in Mediterranean Landscapes

Alcasena

Rodrígues

Gelabert

et al. 2021

Land

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The high level of fire hazard is not surprising given the ownership size and structure: 42% of forest landowners have less than 4 ha and 33% own more than 10 ha, not necessarily in a single land parcel [36]. Almost all (96%) of this area is privately owned, belonging to over 3000 owners, including two large pulp and paper companies [19].…”

Section: Study Area Characterization and The Participatory Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The information collected during several meetings was used to identify five forest owner types: one industrial and four non-industrial (Table 1). The meetings produced additional information that allowed characterizing understory fuels (see [19] and post-fire stand conditions. All collected information was complemented with the Portuguese 2015 land cover map [37].…”

Section: Study Area Characterization and The Participatory Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It ranges from no implementation (FBN0/3) to full FBN implementation (FBN3/3). The first priority level (FBN1/3) corresponds to implementing one third of the FBN in the locations deemed as most relevant to reduce surface fire spread, whereas the second priority level (FBN2/3) integrates the first and second thirds (details on the location of the different priority levels can be found in Benali et al [19]).…”

Section: The Improved Forest Management Scenariosmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At a local scale, it is recommended to promote forest management and planning among landowners as a means to reduce fire risk [17], and providing easy access to forest management rural extension services is essential. At a landscape level, better planning can be achieved through the implementation of a suitable network of roads and/or fuel-breaks [18] and by reducing fuel loads [19]. This will not only enable creating heterogeneous mosaics (in terms of composition and/or structure) of forest stands, contributing to landscape diversity, but it will also reduce the spread and intensity of upcoming large wildfires and facilitate suppression strategies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Combining Landscape Fire Simulations with Stand-Level Growth Simulations to Assist Landowners in Building Wildfire-Resilient Landscapes

Barreiro¹,

Benali²,

Rua³

et al. 2021

Forests

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The wildfire regime in Portugal has been responsible for millions of hectares of burnt area, and Alvares parish is no exception. In 2017, a severe wildfire burnt 60% of its area. Land abandonment has been increasing since the mid 20th century, and a large fraction of the forest area belongs to quasi-absent landowners. This has given rise to large, almost unbroken expanses of undermanaged forests that, in combination with rugged topography, originates a landscape prone to large, intense wildfires. Thus, a change in landscape composition and structure capable of reducing flammability and promoting fuel discontinuity is urgently needed. A fire spread simulator and a forest growth simulator were combined to show the impact of improving management at landscape level. It was assumed that the probability of large wildfires may be reduced by setting aside forest area for the implementation of a fuel break network (FBN) and increasing the area under sustainable forest management. Three levels of management intensity were simulated by restricting the area of Quasi-absent non-industrial owners to 34.5%, 20.1%, and 8.5% of the Alvares forest area, in favor of increasing the area of active and semi-active non-industrial owners (current, moderate, and high management scenarios). Different FBN extents, representing four levels of network implementation priority were combined with the management levels, resulting in 12 scenarios. To evaluate the impact of fire, simulations assuming no-fire, no-FBN, and current management intensity were performed, whereas the impact of operation costs was assessed assuming reduced costs for silvicultural operations. Per hectare simulations were then scaled up to the parish level and volume harvested and net present values were used to compare the management improvement scenarios. Results showed that fire has major repercussions on forest income, but these impacts can be minimized. Intensifying forest management and implementing the first priority FBN segments originated substantial improvements in financial outcome from timber production, close to those obtained for the full FBN implementation. Results also evidenced contrasting contributions from industrial and non-industrial owners with the later evidencing unbalanced cash-flows derailing the possibility for interesting forest incomes. The coupling of fire and forest growth simulations can be an interesting approach to assess the impact of different management and policy scenarios and inform policies.

show abstract

Fire-Smart Territories: a proof of concept based on Mosaico approach

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Context Here we develop a practical framework (Mosaico) and report a real-world example of early implementation of a Fire-Smart Territory (FST) in Sierra de Gata-Las Hurdes region of central Spain. Objectives We aimed to assess the impact of landscape changes induced by Local Land Managers (LLM; indirect prevention) on simulated fire spread under different governance scenarios developed in 2016–2021. Methods Following a participatory process in the region, we received 250 proposals for intervention (49.6% from agriculturalists, 22.8% from forest producers-mainly resin tappers-, and 27.6% from shepherds). From the 94 (37.6%) proposals implemented by the end of the study, we quantified changes in fuel models over the whole territory (Scenario 1, S1). Then, we simulated fires in 20 ignition points to estimate area burned in S1 and three other governance scenarios. Results To date, the sole intervention of LLMs results in a low to moderate impact (current mean 10.5; median 1.8), which can be explained by the high frequency of small-scale interventions (agriculture) and the comparatively modest impact on fuel reduction of large-scale interventions (livestock grazing). A combination of LLM and public actions is needed to reach a more substantial reduction of burned area (S2-S3, mean % impact 14.1–18.9; median 6.9–10.8). Relaxing legal/administrative constraints to allow large private intervention would result in the greatest attainable impact on burned area (S4, mean 25.0; median 17.8). Adaptive management of Mosaico approach must be focussed on improving LLM capacity to modify larger portions of the territory and prioritizing critical areas such as fire propagation nodes.

show abstract

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

Cited by 43 publications

References 39 publications

Fostering Carbon Credits to Finance Wildfire Risk Reduction Forest Management in Mediterranean Landscapes

Fostering Carbon Credits to Finance Wildfire Risk Reduction Forest Management in Mediterranean Landscapes

Combining Landscape Fire Simulations with Stand-Level Growth Simulations to Assist Landowners in Building Wildfire-Resilient Landscapes

Fire-Smart Territories: a proof of concept based on Mosaico approach

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About