RT info:eu-repo/semantics/article
T1 Characterization of biophysical contexts leading to severe wildfires in Portugal and their environmental controls
A1 Fernández Guisuraga, José Manuel
A1 Martins, Samuel
A1 Fernandes, Paulo Alexandre Martins
AD  1966-
A2 Ecologia
K1 Ecología. Medio ambiente
K1 Ingeniería forestal
K1 Clustering
K1 Fire management
K1 Fire severity
K1 Fire weather
K1 Fuel
K1 Southern Europe
K1 2417.13 Ecología Vegetal
K1 3106 Ciencia Forestal
AB [EN]  Characterizing the fire regime in regions prone to extreme wildfire behavior is essential for providing comprehensive insights on potential ecosystem response to fire disturbance in the context of global change. We aimed to disentangle the linkage between contemporary damage-related attributes of wildfires as shaped by the environmental controls of fire behavior across mainland Portugal. We selected large wildfires (≥100 ha, n = 292) that occurred during the 2015–2018 period, covering the full spectrum of large fire-size variation. Ward's hierarchical clustering on principal components was used to identify homogeneous wildfire contexts at landscape scale on the basis of fire size, proportion of high fire severity, and fire severity variability, and their bottom-up (pre-fire fuel type fraction, topography) and top-down (fire weather) controls. Piecewise Structural Equation Modeling was used to disentangle the direct and indirect relationships between fire characteristics and fire behavior drivers. Cluster analysis evidenced severe and large wildfires in the central region of Portugal displaying consistent fire severity patterns. Thus, we found a positive relationship between fire size and proportion of high fire severity, which was mediated by distinct fire behavior drivers involving direct and indirect pathways. A high fraction of conifer forest within wildfire perimeters and extreme fire weather were primarily responsible for those interactions. In the context of global change, our results suggest that pre-fire fuel management should be targeted at expanding the fire weather settings in which fire control is feasible and promote less flammable and more resilient forest types.
PB Elsevier
SN 0048-9697
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10612/15859
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10612/15859
NO Fernández-Guisuraga, Martins, S., and Fernandes, P. M. (2023). Characterization of biophysical contexts leading to severe wildfires in Portugal and their environmental controls. The Science of the Total Environment, 875, Article e162575. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162575
DS BULERIA. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de León
RD 18-jun-2024