Wildfire-induced reduction in the carbon storage of Mediterranean ecosystems: An application to brush and forest fires impacts assessment

Potential Effects of Climate Change on Fire Behavior, Economic Susceptibility and Suppression Costs in Mediterranean Ecosystems: Córdoba Province, Spain

“…Finally, climate change would raise spread rate between 4.45% and 24.07%. Some studies have shown the effects of climate change in fire intensity and difficulties in suppression flames [10] and, therefore, in an increase in the economic impacts from wildfires [6,9,24,25].…”

“…Hunting resource was valued in terms of its sustainable hunting profit, reproductive stock and vegetation resilience [43] ( Table 3). Finally, carbon storage losses can be valued like any other tangible assets [25] (Table 3) because they can be traded on the international credit markets (www.sendeco2.com). Table 3.…”

“…Woodlands [25] where "L" is the resource loss (€/ha), "S" is the valuation according the Spanish system (€/ha), "N" is the valuation adapted from NFMAS (National Fire Management Analysis System, €/ha), "a" takes the value of 1.7 or 2.6 according to protection or recreational function, or timber forest respectively, "b" takes the value of 0.85 or 0.25 base on the same reasons, "C 0 " is the reforestation cost per hectare (€/ha), "t" is the percentage burned stand based on fire behavior, "r" is the compound annual interest rate and depends on species growth rate: fast growth (1.06), medium growth (1.04), slow growth (1.025) and very slow growth (1.015) [20]; "e" is the estimated stand age, "i" is the annual silvicultural cost factor and depends on species growth rate: fast growth (1.27), medium growth (1.1) slow growth (1.1) and very slow growth (0.93), "P" is the price of the timber (€/m 3 ), "V" is the timber volume (m 3 /ha), "y" is the time or years remaining in the harvesting rotation or senescence age, "M" is the tree mortality coefficient depending on fire intensity, "c" is the percentage of immature or mature timber in stand, "P 1 " is the price of affected timber with commercial use (€/m 3 ), "V 1 " is the volume of burned timber (m 3 /ha), "R" is the rotation age, "C" is the percent of non-commercial timber, "A p " is the annual production (kg/ha), "P r " is the estimated resource price (€/kg), "V" is the annual income given the carrying capacity of the site (€/ha), "n" is the estimated number of years until recovery (vegetation resilience), "St" is the reproductive stock (€/ha), "CS" is the carbon stock when the fire occurs, "P c " is the carbon price and "AS" is the annual growth rate on carbon storage. This work goes beyond an economic valuation approach because of the integration of the economic valuation of forest resources as well as the net value changes (NVC) [30].…”

“…At present, fire suppression costs for the study area in general represent about 65% of the total fire management budget [52]. The increase in fire intensity leads to higher economic impacts and suppression difficulties [6,10,24,25], which if not considered leads to higher suppression costs [1]. Our research only considered suppression costs' changes.…”

“…Therefore, a change in fire intensity and severity [1,19], the frequency of large fires [4,20] and the annual area burned [1,[19][20][21][22] can be assumed. This expected fire regime change would lead to higher economic impacts [6,[23][24][25] and to larger fire suppression difficulties [10,26], and as a consequence, to higher suppression costs [27][28][29]. The increase of suppression difficulties entails the incorporation of a greater number of firefighting resources in order to mitigate fire-line spread.…”