Integrating fire risk considerations in landscape-level forest planning

Abstract

The low timber returns of Mediterranean forests, together with their high fire risk, has led to negligent forest management. Absence of management has in turn been blamed for increasing the risk of fire, thus forming a vicious circle of low profitability, little management and high risk of fire. Developing forest planning tools that maximize both economic objectives and fire resistance could help to revive the forest sector in the region and generate long-term fire prevention strategies. In the present study, we simultaneously maximized timber income and the overall fire resistance of the landscape to generate management plans for a typical forest landscape in the Pre-Pyrenees of Catalonia (North-East Spain). The risk of fire was integrated into the economic objective by incorporating potential fire losses in the expected net income. Landscape metrics describing fire resistance were also included in problem formulations. The results show that this approach greatly improves management efficiency in terms of economic profitability and fire resistance.