Mapping the Most Susceptible Regions to Fire in Portugal

Tiago Ermitão; Patrícia Páscoa; Isabel Trigo; Catarina Alonso; Célia Gouveia

doi:10.3390/fire6070254

journal article Open Access Jun 29, 2023

Mapping the Most Susceptible Regions to Fire in Portugal

Tiago Ermitão

Patrícia Páscoa

Isabel Trigo

Catarina Alonso Célia Gouveia

Fire Vol. 6 No. 7 pp. 254 · MDPI AG

View at Publisher Save 10.3390/fire6070254

Abstract

Mediterranean European countries, including Portugal, are considered fire-prone regions, being affected by fire events every summer. Nonetheless, Portugal has been recording large burned areas over the last 20 years, which are not only strongly associated with hot and dry conditions, but also with high fuel availability in the ecosystems. Due to recent catastrophic fire seasons, Portugal has been implementing preventive policies during the pre-fire season, which, in turn, can optimize combat strategies during the fire season. In this context, our study contributes to fire prevention by identifying the regions with the highest potential to burn. The application of a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to a range of climatological, ecological, and biophysical variables, either provided by remote sensing or reanalysis products, and known to be linked with diverse fire-vulnerability factors, allows the objective identification of the regions with the highest susceptibility to burn. The central and southernmost areas of Portugal present a stronger signal in the PCA, suggesting a likely high exposure to future fire events. The fuel accumulation over several months, in conjunction with elevation and fire weather conditions, are the terms out of the retained PCs that can explain most of the variability. The quality assessment performed for the burned areas in 2022 showed that they occurred in highly susceptible areas, highlighting the usefulness of the proposed methodology.

Topics

No keywords indexed for this article. Browse by subject →

References

64

[1]

Pausas "Are wildfires a disaster in the Mediterranean basin?—A review" Int. J. Wildland Fire (2008) 10.1071/wf07151

[2]

Mitsopoulos "Mapping fire behaviour under changing climate in a Mediterranean landscape in Greece" Reg. Environ. Chang. (2016) 10.1007/s10113-015-0884-0

[3]

Fuerst-Bielis, B. (2017). Mediterranean Identities-Environment, Society, Culture, IntechOpen. 10.5772/66587

[4]

Miller "Trends and causes of severity, size, and number of fires in northwestern California, USA" Ecol. Appl. (2012) 10.1890/10-2108.1

[5]

Singleton "Increasing trend in high-severity in the southwestern USA from 1984 to 2015" For. Ecol. Manag. (2019) 10.1016/j.foreco.2018.11.039

[6]

Parks "Warmer and Drier Fire Seasons Contribute to Increases in Area Burned at high Severity in Western US Forests from 1985 to 2017" Geophys. Res. Lett. (2020) 10.1029/2020gl089858

[7]

Etchels "Fire severity impacts on tree mortality and post-fire recruitment in tall eucalypt forests of southwest Australia" For. Ecol. Manag. (2020) 10.1016/j.foreco.2019.117850

[8]

Tran, B.N., Tanase, M.A., Bennett, L.T., and Aponte, C. (October, January 26). Are High Severity Fires Increasing in Southern Australia?. Proceedings of the IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, Waikoloa, HI, USA.

[9]

Barbero "Climate change presents increased potential for very large fires in the contiguous United States" Int. J. Wildland Fires (2015) 10.1071/wf15083

[10]

Turco "Climate drivers of the 2017 devastating fires in Portugal" Sci. Rep. (2019) 10.1038/s41598-019-50281-2

[11]

Sutanto "Heatwaves, droughts and fires: Exploring compound and cascading dry hazards at the pan-European scale" Environ. Int. (2020) 10.1016/j.envint.2019.105276

[12]

Pellegreni "Fire frequency drives decadal changes in soil carbon and nitrogen and ecosystem productivity" Nature (2018) 10.1038/nature24668

[13]

Jones "Megafire causes persistent loss of an old-forest species" Anim. Conserv. (2021) 10.1111/acv.12697

[14]

Pereira "Post-fire soil management" Curr. Opin. Environ. Sci. Health (2018) 10.1016/j.coesh.2018.04.002

[15]

Vieira, G., Zêzere, J., and Mora, C. (2020). Landscapes and Landforms of Portugal, Springer. World Geomorphological Landscapes. 10.1007/978-3-319-03641-0

[16]

Tedim, F., Leone, V., Amraoui, M., Bouillon, C., Coughlan, M., Delogu, G., Fernandes, P.M., Ferreira, C., McCaffrey, S., and McGee, T. (2018). Defining extreme wildfire events: Difficulties, challenges, and impacts. Firehouse, 1. 10.3390/fire1010009

[17]

Parente "Heat waves in Portugal: Current regimes, changes in future climate and impacts on extreme wildfires" Sci. Total Environ. (2018) 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.044

[18]

Gouveia "Drought impacts on vegetation in the pre- and post-fire events over Iberian Peninsula" Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. (2012) 10.5194/nhess-12-3123-2012

[19]

Gouveia "Interactions between Hot and Dry Fuel Conditions and Vegetation Dynamics in the 2017 Fire Season in Portugal" Environ. Res. Lett. (2022) 10.1088/1748-9326/ac8be4

[20]

Ramos "The compound event that triggered the destructive fires of October 2017 in Portugal" iScience (2023) 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106141

[21]

Turco, M., Bedia, J., Di Liberato, F., Fiorucci, P., von Hardenberg, J., Koutsias, N., Llasat, M.-C., Xystrakis, F., and Provenzale, A. (2016). Decreasing fires in Mediterranean Europe. PLoS ONE, 11. 10.1371/journal.pone.0150663

[22]

Silva "Wildfires as a major driver of landscape dynamics in three fire-prone areas of Portugal" Landsc. Urban Plan. (2011) 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2011.03.001

[23]

Nunes "Regional variability and driving forces behind forest fires in Portugal an overview of the last three decades (1980-2009)" Appl. Geogr. (2012) 10.1016/j.apgeog.2012.03.002

[24]

Moreira "Temporal (1958–1995) pattern of change in a cultural landscape of northwestern Portugal: Implications for fire occurrence" Landsc. Ecol. (2001) 10.1023/a:1013130528470

[25]

Casau, M., Dias, M.F., Teixeira, L., Matias, J.C.O., and Nunes, L.J.R. (2022). Reducing rural fire risk through the development of a sustainable supply chain model for residual agroforestry biomass supported in a Web platform: A case study in Portugal Central region with the Project BioAgroFloRes. Fire, 5. 10.3390/fire5030061

[26]

Joshi "Improving prediction and assessment of global fires using multilayer neural networks" Sci. Rep. (2021) 10.1038/s41598-021-81233-4

[27]

Calheiros "Spatial variability in the relation between fire weather and burned area: Patterns and drivers in Portugal" Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss. (2021)

[28]

Oliveira "Assessing the biophysical and social drivers of burned area distribution at the local scale" J. Environ. Manag. (2020) 10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110449

[29]

Oliveira "Reassessing wildfire susceptibility and hazard for mainland Portugal" Sci. Total Environ. (2021) 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143121

[30]

Bergonse, R., Oliveira, S., Santos, P., and Zêzere, J.L. (2022). Wildfire Risk Levels at the Local Scale: Assessing the Relative Influence of Hazard, Exposure, and Social Vulnerability. Fire, 5. 10.3390/fire5050166

[31]

Bergonse "Biophysical controls over fire regime properties in Central Portugal" Sci. Total Environ. (2022) 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.152314

[32]

Benali, A., Sá, A.C., Pinho, J., Fernandes, P.M., and Pereira, J.M. (2021). Understanding the impact of different landscape-level fuel management strategies on wildfire hazard in central Portugal. Forests, 12. 10.20944/preprints202103.0040.v1

[33]

Wu, C., Niu, Z., and Gao, S. (2010). Gross primary production estimation from MODIS data with vegetation index and photosynthetically active radiation in maize. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., 115. 10.1029/2009jd013023

[34]

Running, S.W., and Zhao, M. (2022, March 01). Daily GPP and Annual NPP (MOD17A2/A3) Products NASA Earth Observing System MODIS Land Algorithm. MOD17 User’s Guide. pp. 1–28. Available online: https://www.ntsg.umt.edu/files/modis/MOD17UsersGuide2015_v3.pdf.

[35]

(2022, April 08). Copernicus DEM. Available online: https://spacedata.copernicus.eu/documents/20126/0/GEO1988%E2%80%93CopernicusDEMSPE%E2%80%93002_ProductHandbook_I1.00.pdf.

[36]

Collins "Applying Terrain and Hydrological Editing to Tandem-X Data to Create a Consumer-Ready Worlddem Product" Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spat. Inf. Sci. (2015) 10.5194/isprsarchives-xl-7-w3-1149-2015

[37]

Marešová, J., Gdulová, K., Pracná, P., Moravec, D., Gábor, L., Prošek, J., Barták, V., and Moudrý, V. (2021). Applicability of Data Acquisition Characteristics to the Identification of Local Artefacts in Global Digital Elevation Models: Comparison of the Copernicus and TanDEM-X DEMs. Remote Sens., 13. 10.3390/rs13193931

[38]

Costa, H., Benevides, P., Moreira, F.D., Moraes, D., and Caetano, M. (2022). Spatially Stratified and Multi-Stage Approach for National Land Cover Mapping Based on Sentinel-2 Data and Expert Knowledge. Remote Sens., 14. 10.3390/rs14081865

[39]

Giglio "The Collection 6 MODIS burned area mapping algorithm and product" Remote Sens. Environ. (2018) 10.1016/j.rse.2018.08.005

[40]

Van Wagner, C.E. (1987). Development, and Structure of the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index System, Petawawa National Forestry Institute. Report No. 1992 Canadian Forestry Service.

[41]

Abatzoglou "Global patterns of interannual climate-fire relationships" Glob. Chang. Biol. (2018) 10.1111/gcb.14405

[42]

Vitolo "Fire Weather Index: The skill provided by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts ensemble prediction system" Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. (2020) 10.5194/nhess-20-2365-2020

[43]

Viegas "Comparative study of various methods of fire danger evaluation in Southern Europe" Int. J. Wildland (2000) 10.1071/wf00015

[44]

Herbasch "The ERA5 global reanalysis" Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc. (2020) 10.1002/qj.3803

[45]

Wooster "LSA SAF Meteosat FRP products–Part 1: Algorithms, product contents, and analysis" Atmos. Chem. Phys. (2015) 10.5194/acp-15-13217-2015

[46]

Pinto "Fire danger rating over Mediterranean Europe based on fire radiative power derived from Meteosat" Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. (2018) 10.5194/nhess-18-515-2018

[47]

Trigo "The satellite application facility for land surface analysis" Int. J. Remote Sens. (2011) 10.1080/01431161003743199

[48]

Bolton "Assessing variability in post-fire forest structure along gradients of productivity in the Canadian boreal using multi-source remote sensing" J. Biogeogr. (2017) 10.1111/jbi.12947

[49]

DaCamara "Calibration of the Fire Weather Index over Mediterranean Europe based on fire activity retrieved from MSG satellite imagery" Int. J. Wildland Fire (2014) 10.1071/wf13157

[50]

Using Principal Component Analysis for information-rich socio-ecological vulnerability mapping in Southern Africa

David J. Abson, Andrew J. Dougill, Lindsay C. Stringer

Applied Geography 2012 10.1016/j.apgeog.2012.08.004

Showing 50 of 64 references

Cited By

17

Machine learning-driven characterization and prescription of aerosol optical properties for atmospheric models

Nilton Évora do Rosário, Karla M. Longo · 2026

Geoscientific Model Development

Usability of agricultural drought vulnerability and resilience indicators in planning strategies for small farms: A principal component approach

Tanaya Sarmah, Nazmiye Balta-Ozkan · 2025

Climate Services

Metrics

17

Citations

64

References

Details

Published: Jun 29, 2023
Vol/Issue: 6(7)
Pages: 254
License: View

Authors

T

Tiago Ermitão

Instituto Português do Mar e da Atmosfera, Rua C do Aeroporto, 1749-077 Lisbon, Portugal; Instituto Dom Luiz, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal

P

Patrícia Páscoa

Instituto Português do Mar e da Atmosfera, Rua C do Aeroporto, 1749-077 Lisbon, Portugal; Instituto Dom Luiz, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal; Environmental Physics Laboratory (EPhysLab), Centro de Investigación Mariña, Campus As Lagoas, Universidad de Vigo, 32004 Ourense, Spain

I

Isabel Trigo

Instituto Português do Mar e da Atmosfera, Rua C do Aeroporto, 1749-077 Lisbon, Portugal; Instituto Dom Luiz, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal

C

Catarina Alonso

Instituto Português do Mar e da Atmosfera, Rua C do Aeroporto, 1749-077 Lisbon, Portugal; Centre for the Research and Technology of Agroenvironmental and Biological Sciences (CITAB), Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, 5000-801 Vila Real, Portugal

C

Célia Gouveia

Instituto Português do Mar e da Atmosfera, Rua C do Aeroporto, 1749-077 Lisbon, Portugal; Instituto Dom Luiz, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal

Funding

FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal) Award: UIBD/50019/2020

FlorestaLimpa Award: UIBD/50019/2020

LSA-SAF Award: UIBD/50019/2020

European Union’s Horizon 2020 research project FirEUrisk Award: UIBD/50019/2020

Cite This Article

Tiago Ermitão, Patrícia Páscoa, Isabel Trigo, et al. (2023). Mapping the Most Susceptible Regions to Fire in Portugal. Fire, 6(7), 254. https://doi.org/10.3390/fire6070254

Mapping the Most Susceptible Regions to Fire in Portugal

You May Also Like