Action A3.2 Developing a methodology for incorporating large fire risk into landscape management decision making.

Description: Knowledge of fire typology and fire behaviour patterns offers a valuable information for land planners to integrate in the definition of land-use strategies the prediction of future fire events. This action pretends to develop a methodology for the incorporation of large fire risk into landscape management decision making to make easier the policy choices among fuel treatment management alternatives for reducing landscape vulnerability from a cost- perspective. The methodology will be tested in selected pilot sites considering different EU landscape contexts, i.e. ranging from a rural and low populated scenario to a crowded and forest-urban interface one. Some of the outputs will be the identification of the most vulnerable areas to potential high intensity fires spread and strategic points for wildfire suppression in case of emergency. Modelling procedures based on the statistic relationships between the occurrence of different forest types and environmental data describing the contribution of different factors to the triangle of fire (i.e. topography, vegetation and climate) will be applied. The methodology will offer a conceptual approach to fire typology that can be applied to other regions in Europe and will develop a generalized predictive framework allowing the dynamic production of fire risk maps per typology in new climate change scenarios. Precisely, recognized scenarios of climate change and land-use change at EU level will be considered, bearing in mind the need for a mid-long term perspective in the land use planning decision processes.
Expected results: Developing a methodology offering predictive models and thematic cartography for fire types and fire risk potentially applicable to other regions.