Abstract
Aim of study: This study aims to identify and characterize the spatial and temporal evolution of the types of vegetation that are most affected by forest fires in Europe. The characterization of the fuels is an important issue of the fire regime in each specific ecosystem while, on the other hand, fire is an important disturbance for global vegetation dynamics.Area of study: Southern European countries: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece.Material and Methods: Corine Land Cover maps for 2000 and 2006 (CLC2000, CLC2006) and burned area (BA) perimeters, from 2000 to 2013 in Europe are combined to access the spatial and temporal evolution of the types of vegetation that are most affected by wild fires using descriptive statistics and Geographical Information System (GIS) techniques.Main results: The spatial and temporal distribution of BA perimeters, vegetation and burnt vegetation by wild fires was performed and different statistics were obtained for Mediterranean and entire Europe, confirming the usefulness of the proposed land cover system. A fire proneness index is proposed to assess the fire selectivity of land cover classes. The index allowed to quantify and to compare the propensity of vegetation classes and countries to fire.Research highlights: The usefulness and efficiency of the land cover classification scheme and fire proneness index. The differences between northern Europe and southern Europe and among the Mediterranean region in what concerns to vegetation cover, fire incidence, area burnt in land cover classes and fire proneness between classes for the different countries.Keywords: Fire proneness; Mixed forests; Land cover/land use; Fire regime; Europe; GIS; Corine land cover.
Highlights
Forest and woodland are recognized as important multi-functional resources (Slee, 2005) providing a wide variety of social, economic and environmental benefits, ranging from quantified economic values associated with forest products and less tangible services and contributions to society, to environmental amenities related to air purification, carbon sequestration and prevention of land degradation and desertification (Führer, 2000; FAO, 2010).The natural vegetation in most of Europe is essentially forest and woodland from the Mediterranean through the deciduous forests of Central and Western Europe to the boreal forests in Fennoscandia (Bengtsson et al, 2000)
Obtained results for the spatial distribution and the temporal evolution of land cover/land use types, fire incidence and fire proneness will be presented in the following subsections
The most important features of the spatial distribution of the land use/land cover in Europe (Fig. 1) are: (i) the apparent contrast between the highly forested Sweden and Finland and the remaining Europe dominated by Agricultural areas in the low lands and forests in the highlands; (ii) the high abundance of Sclerophyllous vegetation in Norway and Iceland; and, (iii) the low amount of the European area devoted to nonflammable Land Cover Classes (LCC) (e.g., Non vegetated areas and artifia) cial areas, surrounding the most important cities)
Summary
Forest and woodland are recognized as important multi-functional resources (Slee, 2005) providing a wide variety of social, economic and environmental benefits, ranging from quantified economic values associated with forest products and less tangible services and contributions to society, to environmental amenities related to air purification, carbon sequestration and prevention of land degradation and desertification (Führer, 2000; FAO, 2010).The natural vegetation in most of Europe is essentially forest and woodland from the Mediterranean through the deciduous forests of Central and Western Europe to the boreal forests in Fennoscandia (Bengtsson et al, 2000). Over the last 20 years, the forested area has expanded in all European regions and has gained 0.8 million ha each year (Forest Europe, 2011) except in southern European countries, where fires burnt large areas every year (Schmuck et al, 2011). These countries are an integral part of the Mediterranean region with a temperate type of climate characterized by rainy mild winters and warm dry summers associated to geographical and topographical variation related to the presence of variable coastline and of many mountain ranges. Forests and woodlands of Mediterranean region cover about 80 million hectares, almost 9% of the region’s land area and constitute a unique world natural heritage in terms of biological diversity, a high degree of tree richness and endemism with extraordinary genetic diversity which must be preserved (Scarascia-Mugnozza & Matteucci, 2012)
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