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Forest fires: Fuel management

Endorsed by
Motivation

Fuel management is critical to reduce the probability of ignitions and fire propagation. The increasing trend in fuel load and continuity in southern Europe over the last century can be attributed to land abandonment, inadequate landscape and forest management, and fire exclusion policies.

Potential Solutions

Fuel management is critical to reduce the probability of ignitions and fire propagation. The increasing trend in fuel load and continuity in southern Europe over the last century can be attributed to land abandonment, inadequate landscape and forest management, and fire exclusion policies.

Current prevention programmes suffer limited budget allocation and often lack an adaptive legislative framework able to regulate fuel management activities. There is also a lack of guidance for fuel management protocols at the EU level, including the use of prescribed burning.

The projected increase in drought severity and associated increase in fuel flammability due to climate change will further intensify forest fire beyond existing fire prone areas.However, there is currently a limited uptake of scientific knowledge by policy and management actors to address fuel management under future climate and land-use scenarios.

Rationale & related CM function(s)

New approaches for long-term biomass management at landscape scale should be developed, taking into account both historical land-uses and future scenarios of climate and fire regime
New tools based on cost–benefit analyses should be developed for the evaluation of fire prevention practices, including the use of biomass for energy.
More research is needed on the effects of prescribed burning on forest ecosystems in order to improve operational effectiveness
Identify the possible trade-offs between short-term fuel management objectives and long-term adaptation needs
eu Portfolio of Solutions web site has been initially developed in the scope of DRIVER+ project. Today, the service is managed by AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH., for the benefit of the European Crisis Management. PoS is endorsed and supported by the Disaster Competence Network Austria (DCNA) as well as by the STAMINA and TeamAware H2020 projects.