Road Network and the Spatial Distribution of Wildfires in the Valencian Community (1993–2015)

Abstract

Understanding the role of wildfire drivers is essential to implement more effective prevention strategies at the regional scale and to promote specific mitigation actions at the local scale. By considering municipalities as the elementary analysis domain, the present study investigates the spatial distribution of wildfires in the Valencian Community, a Mediterranean fire-prone area with variable climate regimes, heterogeneous landscapes and increasing human pressure. Assuming that a denser road network increases the probability of wildfire occurrence, results of a quantitative analysis exploring the relationship between spatial location of ignition points and roads were presented. The empirical findings of this study contribute to ascertain the role of roads as a direct (or indirect) cause of wildfires in the Mediterranean region.

Sustainable Land Management, Wildfire Risk and the Role of Grazing in Mediterranean Urban-Rural Interfaces: A Regional Approach from Greece

“…Southern European countries have witnessed increasing frequency and severity of wildfires [10,11], and the increasing role of wildfires in peri-urban dynamics is a key issue in environmental risk [15]. Multiple factors were demonstrated to drive recent fire dynamics [15,28,29], with the consequent increase in the spatial heterogeneity of (both large and smaller) wildfires [16][17][18][19][20]. Spatial heterogeneity in wildfires reflects a low predictability of the most severe events, higher suppression costs, and less effective prevention and preparedness measures, especially in vulnerable districts such as the urban-rural interface [19,20,84].…”

“…Multiple factors were demonstrated to drive recent fire dynamics [15,28,29], with the consequent increase in the spatial heterogeneity of (both large and smaller) wildfires [16][17][18][19][20]. Spatial heterogeneity in wildfires reflects a low predictability of the most severe events, higher suppression costs, and less effective prevention and preparedness measures, especially in vulnerable districts such as the urban-rural interface [19,20,84]. As a matter of fact, a higher fire risk in Southern Europe [3,10,85] was demonstrated to be associated with an increasing frequency of less predictable events [3,15,19,24,25,27,34].…”

“…As a matter of fact, fire spread more widely and aggressively in these contexts, causing substantial economic and environmental damage [15], negatively impacting land resources, ecosystem services, and biodiversity, and affecting activities such as tourism, especially in coastal areas [3]. In such contexts, the spatial distribution of fires changed rapidly over time [16][17][18][19][20]. Increased spatial variability makes fire prediction a particularly difficult task [21].…”

“…Moreover, winter fires are becoming more frequent compared to (the more traditional) summer fires [3,11,[22][23][24]. The increased variability in fire regimes over time and space is a particularly relevant issue in sustainable land management [15,19,20]. Although fuel and landscape heterogeneity can help to slow fire spread, due to fuel breaks, spatio-temporal heterogeneity in fire regimes may halt suppression measures [25].…”

Industrial Sprawl and Residential Housing: Exploring the Interplay between Local Development and Land-Use Change in the Valencian Community, Spain

“…Reflecting on where locating residential or productive settlements is essential in prevention of potential risks to population and human activities in a given district [79]. Mediterranean contexts are sensitive to extreme episodes which affect economic activities and the inhabitants living in dispersed villages [78,[80][81][82][83]. The presence of an industrial pole in areas classified at risk can cause socioeconomic damages and environmental disturbance [84,85].…”