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2016 ; 11
(3
): e0150663
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Decreasing Fires in Mediterranean Europe
#MMPMID26982584
Turco M
; Bedia J
; Di Liberto F
; Fiorucci P
; von Hardenberg J
; Koutsias N
; Llasat MC
; Xystrakis F
; Provenzale A
PLoS One
2016[]; 11
(3
): e0150663
PMID26982584
show ga
Forest fires are a serious environmental hazard in southern Europe. Quantitative
assessment of recent trends in fire statistics is important for assessing the
possible shifts induced by climate and other environmental/socioeconomic changes
in this area. Here we analyse recent fire trends in Portugal, Spain, southern
France, Italy and Greece, building on a homogenized fire database integrating
official fire statistics provided by several national/EU agencies. During the
period 1985-2011, the total annual burned area (BA) displayed a general
decreasing trend, with the exception of Portugal, where a heterogeneous signal
was found. Considering all countries globally, we found that BA decreased by
about 3020 km2 over the 27-year-long study period (i.e. about -66% of the mean
historical value). These results are consistent with those obtained on longer
time scales when data were available, also yielding predominantly negative trends
in Spain and France (1974-2011) and a mixed trend in Portugal (1980-2011).
Similar overall results were found for the annual number of fires (NF), which
globally decreased by about 12600 in the study period (about -59%), except for
Spain where, excluding the provinces along the Mediterranean coast, an upward
trend was found for the longer period. We argue that the negative trends can be
explained, at least in part, by an increased effort in fire management and
prevention after the big fires of the 1980's, while positive trends may be
related to recent socioeconomic transformations leading to more hazardous
landscape configurations, as well as to the observed warming of recent decades.
We stress the importance of fire data homogenization prior to analysis, in order
to alleviate spurious effects associated with non-stationarities in the data due
to temporal variations in fire detection efforts.
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