FIRE-ENGINE - Flexible Design of Forest Fire Management Systems

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Addressing Wildfire Risk in a Landscape-Level Scheduling Model: An Application in Portugal

Publication . Ferreira, Liliana; Constantino, Miguel F.; Borges, José G.; Garcia-Gonzalo, Jordi

The paper presents and discusses research aiming at the development of a forested landscape management scheduling model that may address the risk of wildfires. A general indicator is built from wildfire occurrence and damage probabilities to assess stand-level resistance to wildfires. This indicator is developed to further address the specificity of each stand configuration (e.g., shape and size) and spatial context (neighboring stands characteristics). The usefulness of the development of such an indicator is tested within a mixed integer programming (MIP) approach to find the location and timing of management options (e.g., fuel treatment, thinning, clearcut) that may maximize the forested landscape expected net revenues. The Leiria National Forest, a Portuguese forest in central Portugal, was used as a case study. Results suggest that the proposed approach may help integrate wildfire risk in forested landscape management planning and assess its impact on the optimal plan. Results further show that prescriptions that include fuel treatments are often chosen over others that do not include them, thus highlighting the importance of wildfire management efforts. Finally, they provide interesting insights about the role of thinnings and fuel treatment in mitigating wildfire risk.

2015-04-30Artigo científico

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Palavras-chave

Flexible design,System dynamics,Forest fire management,Forest planning, Engineering and technology ,Engineering and technology/Environmental engineering

Entidade financiadora

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P.

Programa de financiamento

Concurso de Projectos de Investigação Científica e Desenvolvimento Tecnológico no Âmbito do Acordo de Cooperação entre Portugal e o MIT - 2009

Número da atribuição

MIT/FSE/0064/2009