1. Climate change impact on future wildfire danger and activity in southern Europe: a review
- Author
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Javier Madrigal, Jean-Luc Dupuy, Carmen Hernando, Julien Ruffault, François Pimont, Nicolas Martin-StPaul, Hélène Fargeon, Paulo Fernandes, Mercedes Guijarro, Ecologie des Forêts Méditerranéennes (URFM), Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE), Centro de Investigacion Forestal (INIA-CIFOR), Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria = National Institute for Agricultural and Food Research and Technology (INIA), Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD), Universidade do Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Centro de Investigação e de Tecnologias Agro-Ambientais e Biológicas (CITAB), University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro [Portugal] (UTAD), This paper has been prepared under the framework of the project MedWildFireLab (‘Global Change Impacts on Wildland Fire Behaviour and Uses in Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems, towards a «wall less» Mediterranean Wildland Fire Laboratory’) funded by ERANET FORESTERRA, and project UID/AGR/04033/2019 funded by the FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia)., European Project: 138533,FCT::,FORESTERRA/2014,FORESTERRA/0001/2014(2014), Spanish National Research Council [Madrid] (CSIC), and Portuguese Foundation for Science and TechnologyUID/AGR/04033/2019
- Subjects
environmental_sciences ,0106 biological sciences ,Mediterranean climate ,Forest management ,Climate change ,Climate-fire relationship ,FWI ,010603 evolutionary biology ,01 natural sciences ,Forest fuels ,Mediterranean forests ,Burnt areas ,[SDV.SA.SF]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Agricultural sciences/Silviculture, forestry ,11. Sustainability ,Ecosystem ,Projections ,Ecology ,Global warming ,Forestry ,15. Life on land ,Arid ,Disturbance (ecology) ,13. Climate action ,Greenhouse gas ,Environmental science ,Physical geography ,010606 plant biology & botany - Abstract
Wildfire is the main disturbance in forested ecosystems of southern Europe and is due to complex interactions between climate-weather, fuels and people. Warmer and drier conditions projected in this region are expected to profoundly affect wildfires, which will impact ecosystems and humans. We review the scientific literature addressing the assessment of climate change impacts on wildfires in southern Europe, with a twofold objective: (i) report the trends in wildfire danger and activity projected under warming climate in southern Europe and (ii) discuss the limitations of wildfire projections under the specific biogeographical context of southern Europe.We identified 22 projection studies that examined future wildfire danger or wildfire activity at local, regional or continental scale. Under the scenario with the highest greenhouse gas emissions, we found that projections studies estimate an increase in future fire danger and burnt areas varying, on average, from 2 to 4 % and from 15 to 25 % per decade, respectively. Fire-prone area expansion to the north and to Mediterranean mountains is a concern, while climate-induced burnt area increase might be limited by fuel availability in the most arid areas. While all studies agreed on the direction of changes, further comparisons on the magnitude of increase remained challenging because of heterogeneous methodological choices between projections studies (climate models, projection period, spatial scale and fire metrics). We then described three main sources of uncertainty that may affect the reliability of wildfire projections: climate projections, climate-fire models, and the influences of fuel load/structure and human related factors on the climate-fire relationships. We finally suggest research directions to address some of these issues for the purpose of refining fire danger and fire activity projections in southern Europe.
- Published
- 2020