Search Results (7)

Integrating fire into land management is crucial in fire-prone regions. To evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of prescribed fire (PF), we employed the REMAINS model in NW Iberia’s Transboundary Biosphere Reserve Gerês-Xurés. We tested three levels of prescribed fire treatment effort for shrubland and grassland, employing three spatial allocation strategies: random distribution, prioritization in high-wildfire-risk zones, and creating fuel breaks by utilizing the existing road network. These approaches were assessed in isolation and in combination with three land-use scenarios: Business-as-usual (representing rural abandonment trends), High Nature Value farmland (reversing farmland abandonment), and Fire-Smart forest management (promoting fire-resistant landscapes). Our results confirm that PF is effective in reducing future wildfires (reductions up to 36%), with leverage values ranging from 0.07 to 0.45. Strategic spatial allocation, targeting wildfire-risk areas and existing road networks, is essential for maximizing prescribed fire’s efficiency (leverage effort of 0.32 and 0.45; i.e., approximately 3 ha of PF decrease subsequent wildfire by 1 ha). However, the PF treatments yield the best efficiency when integrated into land-use policies promoting ‘fire-smart’ landscapes (reaching leverage values of up to 1.78 under policies promoting ‘HNVf and ‘fire-smart’ forest conversion). These recommendations strengthen wildfire prevention and enhance landscape resilience in fire-prone regions. Full article

This work is devoted to presenting the communication activities carried out in the MED-Star project and the four joint projects (Intermed; Med-Coopfire; Med-Foreste; Med-PSS). MED-Star (“Strategies and measures to reduce wildfire risk in the Mediterranean area”) is a 3.5-year strategic project that started in May 2019, coordinated by the Sardinia Region, and supported by the Interreg Italy-France Maritime Program 2014–2020, which is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The cluster of projects comprises more than 20 partners (among which are regional, provincial, and local institutions; research centers; universities; wildfire and forest managers; etc.) of the cross-border Interreg Italy-France Maritime territory, which includes Sardinia, Corsica, Tuscany, Liguria, and PACA Regions. The projects have the main goals of improving the capacity of public institutions to jointly prevent and manage wildfire risks and propose wildfire risk mitigation and management strategies that can be shared at the transboundary level. In this perspective, these communication activities represent a key element of the projects. The communicative task of the five projects is structured into four main pillars: (1) strategic communication planning and digital communication channels; (2) dissemination, networking, and public events; (3) institutional communication about wildfire risks; and (4) joint training and exchanges of experience for the definition of the shared models of land and wildfire management. Our contribution will highlight the most relevant communication outputs and outcomes of the MED-Star and the four joint projects, among others, providing an in-depth analysis of the communication activities within the strategic “MED-Star media” platform. Full article

Wildfire is a complex problem because of the diverse mix of actors and landowners involved, uncertainty about outcomes and future conditions, and unavoidable trade-offs that require ongoing negotiation. In this perspective, we argue that addressing the complex challenge of wildfire requires governance approaches designed to fit the nature of the wildfire problem. For instance, while wildfire is often described as a cross-boundary problem, understanding wildfire risk as transboundary highlights important political and institutional challenges that complicate collaboration across jurisdictions and shared stewardship. Transboundary risk requires collaborative governance that attends to the distribution of power, authority, and capacity across the range of actors relevant to particular fire-prone landscapes. Wildfire is also changing in unprecedented ways and multiple, interacting uncertainties make predicting future wildfires difficult. Anticipatory governance can build our capacity to integrate uncertainty into wildfire decision-making and manage risk in proactive ways. Finally, competing interests and values mean that trade-offs are inherent to the wildfire problem. Risk governance links science and society through deliberative, participatory processes that explicitly navigate tradeoffs and build legitimacy for actions to address wildfire risk. Governance approaches that better target the nature of the wildfire problem will improve our ability to coexist with fire today and in the future. Full article

After the Korean War, human access to the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) was highly restricted. However, limited agricultural activity was allowed in the Civilian Control Zone (CCZ) surrounding the DMZ. In this study, land cover and vegetation changes in the western DMZ and CCZ from 1919 to 2017 were investigated. Coniferous forests were nearly completely destroyed during the war and were then converted to deciduous forests by ecological succession. Plains in the DMZ and CCZ areas showed different patterns of land cover changes. In the DMZ, pre-war rice paddies were gradually transformed into grasslands. These grasslands have not returned to forest, and this may be explained by wildfires set for military purposes or hydrological fluctuations in floodplains. Grasslands near the floodplains in the DMZ are highly valued for conservation as a rare land type. Most grasslands in the CCZ were converted back to rice paddies, consistent with their previous use. After the 1990s, ginseng cultivation in the CCZ increased. In addition, the landscape changes in the Korean DMZ and CCZ were affected by political circumstances between South and North Korea. Our results provide baseline information for the development of ecosystem management and conservation plans for the Korean DMZ and CCZ. Given the high biodiversity and ecological integrity of the Korean DMZ region, transboundary governance for conservation should be designed. Full article

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2014, suggests that an important increase in frequency and magnitude of hazardous processes related to climate change is to be expected at the global scale. Consequently, it is necessary to improve the level of preparedness and the level of public awareness, to fill institutional gaps, and to improve territorial planning in order to reduce the potentially disastrous impact of natural hazards related to climate change. This paper mainly presents a new framework for risk assessment and mapping which enables countries with limited data sources to assess their risk to climate change related hazards at the local level, in order to reduce potential costs, to develop risk reduction strategies, to harmonize their preparedness efforts with neighboring countries and to deal with trans-boundary risk. The methodology is based on the European Commission’s “Risk Assessment and Mapping Guidelines for Disaster Management” (2010) and considers local restrictions, such as a lack of documentation of historic disastrous events, spatial and other relevant data, offering alternative options for risk assessment, and the production of risk maps. The methodology is based on event tree analysis. It was developed within the European project SEERISK and adapted for a number of climate change-related hazards including floods, heat waves, wildfires, and storms. Additionally, the framework offers the possibility for risk assessment under different future scenarios. The implications for climate change adaptation policy are discussed. Full article

Increasing temperatures and wildfire incidence and decreasing precipitation and river runoff in southern Africa are predicted to have a variety of impacts on the ecology, structure, and function of semi-arid savannas, which provide innumerable livelihood resources for millions of people. This paper builds on previous research that documents change in inundation and fire regimes in the Chobe River Basin (CRB) in Namibia and Botswana and proposes to demonstrate a methodology that can be applied to disentangle the effect of environmental variability from land management decisions on changing and ecologically sensitive savanna ecosystems in transboundary contexts. We characterized the temporal dynamics (1985–2010) of vegetation productivity for the CRB using proxies of vegetation productivity and examine the relative importance of shifts in flooding and fire patterns to vegetation dynamics and effects of the association of phases of the El Niño—Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on vegetation greenness. Our results indicate that vegetation in these semi-arid environments is highly responsive to climatic fluctuations and the long-term trend is one of increased but heterogeneous vegetation cover. The increased cover and heterogeneity during the growing season is especially noted in communally-managed areas of Botswana where long-term fire suppression has been instituted, in contrast to communal areas in Namibia where heterogeneity in vegetation cover is mostly increasing primarily outside of the growing season and may correspond to mosaic early dry season burns. Observed patterns of increased vegetation productivity and heterogeneity may relate to more frequent and intense burning and higher spatial variability in surface water availability from both precipitation and regional inundation patterns, with implications for global environmental change and adaptation in subsistence-based communities. Full article