Using Participatory Mapping to Foster Community-Based Disaster Risk Reduction in Forest Fire-Prone Areas: The Case of Monchique in Portugal

Abstract

Local knowledge and communities’ active role in disaster risk areas are recognized in the literature as key conditions to better understand risks, enhance adaptive capacities and foster local resilience. A participatory action research project in forest fire-prone areas in Monchique, Portugal, is aligned with the literature and adopts participatory mapping as a method that can bring evidence to the importance of local knowledge and communities’ agency. In the BRIDGE Project, different types of knowledge are integrated, triggering local/collective agency and fostering a forest fire community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR) approach. An innovation laboratory (InnoLab) provides the space for dialogue and knowledge sharing for different actors that manage forest territories. In the InnoLab, participatory mapping is used as a method to engage landowners where risk factors and local vulnerabilities were identified. Their active engagement enabled a collective perception in the assessment of vulnerability and led to the identification of strategic measures for risk reduction. This paper shares the process and outcomes of this participatory mapping, highlighting the benefits of a community approach and the importance of local knowledge and practices as recognized in the literature. It also reveals how the active role of local stakeholders can help drive a CBDRR process.

Monchique’s Innovation Laboratory—A Space for Dialogue and Knowledge Sharing to Foster Community-Based Disaster Risk Reduction

“…The GIS map that also resulted from the BRIDGE InnoLab participatory mapping has already been published and can be consulted in the work by Partidário et al (2022) [22].…”

“…In total, as presented in Figures 4 and 5, within the InnoLab scope there were eight activities developed (two Tree Days with Monchique's school group and six participatory sessions with Monchique's community), one scientific paper on the use of participatory mapping to foster CBDRR in Monchique's forest-fire-prone areas [22], three communications at international conferences, and three newsletters. Meetings with the representatives of these groups were held, allowing the initiation of the InnoLab activities in March 2022 with the Tree Day activity involving the school community.…”

“…In total, as presented in Figures 4 and 5, within the InnoLab scope there were eight activities developed (two Tree Days with Monchique's school group and six participatory sessions with Monchique's community), one scientific paper on the use of participatory mapping to foster CBDRR in Monchique's forest-fire-prone areas [22], three communications at international conferences, and three newsletters. The school community activities took place in the Tree Days (21st of March) of 2022 and 2023 and aimed to obtain the children's perception about their territory forest fire risk and what can and cannot be done.…”

“…The participatory mapping of Monchique's vulnerabilities and risks [22] allowed us to identify, locate and interpret Monchique's risks and local vulnerabilities towards forest fire events. To do so, the data collection presented in Figure 6 was conducted, between march and April 2022, as described in the paper published by Partidário et al (2022) [22]. These workshops' target group were the local landowners, most of whom have forest fragments on their property.…”

“…Nonetheless, Vigna et al (2021) indicates that participatory approaches in forest fire research still seem to be neglected and, therefore, it needs to be further developed to make community involvement in fire-risk areas a central (and non-negligible) aspect of forest fire risk reduction [5]. Moreover, the literature shows that there is a lack of innovative participatory approaches recognising local knowledge and engaging communities in fireprone areas integrated into the CBDRR process [22].…”