Forest fire

This study explores the modern history of Minoan culture and the myth of Minoan archaeology. Emerging from the cultural milieu of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the genesis of this culture formed in the mind of Arthur Evans soon after he began excavations at Knossos in 1900. By 1930, he had transformed the site previously excavated by Minos Kalokairinos and earlier known as Tou Tseleve he Kephala and Ta Pitharia into the so-called Palace of Minos, and from poorly preserved ruins into a brightly painted, multi-storied, concrete vision of the past. After Evans's death, the restored palace became one of the most visited archaeological sites in the world and, in the process, the restoration assumed its own historical identity and became a major problem of conservation. Evans was the first not only to restore a monument to such an extent, but also to use actual archaeological remains as a medium of expression. Beyond giving posterity his vision of the past, Evans was to have a much greater influence on archaeological thought than is currently conceded. Evans viewed his Minoans as the first great European culture, but it was his disciple, V. Gordon Childe, who was to apply the concept of an archaeological culture systematically in his The Dawn of European Civilization (1925), thereby making it a working tool for all European archaeologists. At the brink of modernity, archaeology became entangled with a quest for European identity, and the legacy of that time continues to exert its influence on the present.

1. This paper reviews and compares the effects of forest fire and timber harvest on mammalian abundance and diversity, throughout successional time in the boreal forest of North America. 2. Temporal trends in mammal abundance and diversity are generally similar for both harvested and burned stands, with some differences occurring in the initiation stage (0-10 years post disturbance). 3. Small mammals and ungulates are most abundant immediately post disturbance, and decrease as stands age. Lynxes and hares utilize mid-successional stands, but are rare in young and old stands. Bats, arboreal sciurids and mustelids increase in abundance with stand age, and are most abundant in old growth. 4. Substantial gaps in the data exist for carnivores; the response of these species to fire and harvest requires research, as predator-prey interactions can affect mammal community structure in both early and late successional stages. 5. The lack of explicit treatment of in-stand forest structure post disturbance, in the reviewed literature made comparisons difficult. Where forest structure was considered, the presence of downed woody material, live residual trees and standing dead wood were shown to facilitate convergence of mammal communities to a pre-disturbance state for both disturbance types. 6. Mammalian assemblages differed considerably between successional stages, emphasizing the importance of maintaining stands of each successional stage on the landscape when implementing forest management strategies.

Forest Fires are one of the most important and prevalent type of disasters and they can create a great deal of Environmental Impacts due to which their early detection is very vital. The main need for choosing this particular application for the detection of forest fires is to overcome the demerits present in the existing technologies of MODIS and Basic Wireless Sensor Network-based Forest Fire Detection Systems and an advanced system is developed for the detection of forest fires. The two main modules present in the project are the Monitoring Area Module and the Forest Area Module. All these together are split into five sub-modules for step-by-step development and implementation. Those include Sensors' Module, Serial Communication Module using Zigbee, Optimized Solar Energy Harvester using Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT), PC-based Web Server and Mechanical Modeling. The first three sub-modules belong to the Forest Area Module. They are integrated together and mechanical modeling is done to place it in the forest, whereas, the PC-based Web Server is developed for the Monitoring Area. The outcome of the above implementations reveal that various sensors used in addition to the temperature sensor improves security level for areas located near the forests. It also shows that the Optimized Solar Energy Harvester increases the efficiency to about 85 % and the use of PC-based Web Server reduces the bulkiness and cost of the entire system.

Forest fires are a major environmental issue, creating economical and ecological damage while endangering human lives. Forest fires are one of the major natural risks in the Golestan province. It is impossible to control nature, but is possible to map forest fire risk zone and thereby minimise the frequency of fire and avert damage. Therefore, forest fire risk zone mapping as one of the urgent task for the protection of the environment is necessary. A geographic information system (GIS) can be used effectively to combine different forest-fire causing factors for demanding the forest fire risk zone map. Parameters that affect the fire such as topography, vegetation, slope, aspect, NDVI, meteorology factors were integrated within GIS. For these analyses ARCGIS software was used. Forest fire risk zones were specified by assigning subjective weights to the classes of all the layers according to their sensitivity to fire or their fire-inducing capability. The results of the analysis were shown by reports and graphics. The integration of these factors into GIS can be very useful to determine risky places and to plan forestry management after fire.

Los incendios forestales como riesgo ambiental tienen causas fundamentalmente humanas. Y, más que humanas, sociales o socio-espaciales, es decir, territoriales. En este artículo se demuestra la naturaleza y evolución de tales causas en el centro de España durante los últimos 500 años, a partir del análisis de fuentes documentales que han permitido datar la sucesión de diferentes regímenes del fuego y, muy en particular, el origen del régimen actual de incendios forestales, que se puede fijar a finales de los años 50 y principios de los 60. Palabras clave: Gestión del territorio, régimen del fuego, Sistema Central, usos del suelo.

Purpose -In a tropical country like Malaysia, forest fire is a very common natural and man-made disaster that prevails in the whole South East Asian region throughout the year. Recently, the haze problem in Malaysia has created a lot of awareness among the government and eco-tourism sectors. Therefore, detection of the hotspot is very important to delineate the forest fire susceptibility mapping. In this study, remote sensing and geographical information systems (GIS) have been used to evaluate forest fire susceptibility at Sungai Karang and Raja Muda Musa Forest Reserve, Selangor, Malaysia. Frequency ratio model has been applied for the delineation of forest fire mapping for the study area. Design/methodology/approach -Forest fire locations were identified in the study area from historical hotspots data from year 2000 to 2005 using AVHRR NOAA 12 and NOAA 16 satellite images. Various other supported data such as soil map, topographic data, and agro climate were collected and created using GIS. These data were constructed into a spatial database using GIS. The factors that influence fire occurrence, such as fuel type and Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (NDVI), were extracted from classified Landsat-7 ETM imagery. Slope and aspect of topography were calculated from topographic database. Soil type was extracted from soil database and dry month code from agroclimate data. Forest fire susceptibility was analyzed using the forest fire occurrence factors by likelihood ratio method. Findings -A new statistical method has been applied for the forest fire susceptibility mapping. The results of the analysis were verified using forest fire location data with the help of a newly written programming code. The validation results show satisfactory agreement between the susceptibility map and the existing data on forest fire location. The GIS was used to analyze the vast amount efficiently, and statistical programs were used to maintain the specificity and accuracy. The result can be used for early warning, fire suppression resources planning and allocation. Originality/value -All data used in this study are original. The forest fire susceptibility mapping has been done in this study area for the first time. A new program has been coded to cross-verify the susceptibility map. The results were also verified with field data and other supporting weather data.

The forests in India and worldwide are threatened by many factors, one among them being the increasing frequency of forest fires. It damages the forest ecosystem and the environment thus altering the global climate. A proper monitoring and understanding of forest fires both spatially and temporally would assist in management of forest and help in protecting the biodiversity and wildlife habitat. Satellite remote sensing and GIS help in visualizing the extent and damage of forest fire at various scales and time periods. Objectives: To analyze the incidences of forest fires in Jharkhand state of India. Forest fire hotspot district were identified and analyzed. Methods/Statistical Analysis: The forest fire point data from the year 2005 to 2016 was analyzed in GIS domain for Jharkhand. The Landsat-8 data was utilized to obtain the forest cover of 2015 for Paschim Singhbhum district. The 2km*2km grid was generated to evaluate each grid with reference to forest fire incidence. Findings: Analysis of the datasets revealed that highest forest fire district of Jharkhand state is Paschim Singhbhum, it retain 30% of total forest fire whereas it contain approximately 17 % of the state forest cover. The study reveals very high frequency of forest fire grids in Paschim Singhbhum district falls in north-west of Pansuan dam of Porhat forest division. It provides a spatial view of forest fire occurrence, spread over duration of time which can be incorporated in management objectives to deal with the adverse effect of forest fire. Application/Improvements: Appropriate measures can focus on the particular very high to medium forest fire grid to minimize the effect of forest fire impact.

Forest fire is of both local and global concern. Large scale fires are not part of the natural disturbance of tropical rain forests but this threat has increased in the last few decades. Under global warming, Indonesia is projected to have higher temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns. Southern Indonesia is predicted to be drier whereas the north is likely to become wetter. Inter-annual climate variability associated with phenomena such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation may cause big decreases in rainfall. This paper reviews the nature and extent of fire problem and the effectiveness of the current policy and institutional provisions in Indonesia in addressing forest fires under projected future climate change. We then consider possible strategies for improving their effectiveness. The review results indicate that first, Indonesia has enacted a number of regulations and established various institutions to tackle forest and other wildfires, but these have proved ineffective. Second, under future climate change scenarios and current fire management practices, Indonesia's tropical rain forests could be more susceptible to fire. Third, effectiveness could be improved by addressing the underlying causes of fires, involving a wide range of stakeholders in formulating the regulations and enhancing law enforcement.

Dans cette étude, on vise à explorer l'apport de l'imagerie spatiale pour le suivi de la dynamique de la végétation avant et après incendie ainsi que l'estimation de l'inflammabilité des formations forestières. La réalisation de cet objectif permet d'améliorer l'aménagement des zones les plus à risque et de cibler les ouvrages de protection pour être en mesure de lutter convenablement contre les incendies de forêt. On présente les résultats obtenus à partir de l'analyse et du traitement des données de télédétection optique multidates et multicapteurs HRV (SPOT-XS de 1988 et de 1996 et ASTER de 2001) de moyenne résolution spatiale (20 m et 15 m) sur le site incendié de Oum Laboueb (Djebel Fkirin) situé au Nord de la Tunisie. Ce site a été ravagé par le feu pendant l'été de 1988. Une nouvelle méthode a été développée, reposant sur des techniques d'interprétation visuelle, de classification dirigée, de combinaison arithmétique appliquée aux images disponibles et d'analyses statistiques des informations spectrales.

En consecuencia de fenómenos globales tales como el calentamiento global, el periodo de duración de las estaciones climáticas, el aumento de la temperatura y la contaminación por basuras, se generan condiciones propicias para el inicio de incendios en áreas de bosques o zonas de importancia, afectando la fauna, flora y las ciudades adyacentes a éstos. Además de ofrecer posibilidades de vigilancia y recolección de información
para mapeo geográfico.
Este diseño tiene como fin dar herramientas a la comunidad para la implementación de un sistema de alerta temprana y monitoreo de incendios forestales mediante tecnologías de análisis termográfico, Inteligencia artificial, IoT, Sistema de Posicionamiento Global GPS embebidos en Vehículos Aéreos no Tripulados (UAV, por sus siglas en inglés). Esta tecnología propuesta es la punta de lanza en los sistemas
autónomos para el análisis de grandes extensiones de tierra con mínimo personal de operación, maximizando el potencial de los vehículos al usar tecnologías de alimentación Híbrido – Eléctrico – Fotovoltáico y sistemas de reconocimiento de imágenes basadas en Inteligencia Artificial como son Redes Neuronales Artificiales.

As result of global phenomena such global warming, the duration of the seasons, the temperature rise and contamination by waste, favorable conditions for starting fires in wooded areas or areas of importance are generated, affecting fauna, flora and cities adjacent to them. Besides offering possibilities for monitoring and gathering information for
geographic mapping. This design intended to give tools to the community for the implementation of an early warning system and monitoring
forest fires through technologies like thermographic analysis, artificial intelligence, IoT, Global Positioning System GPS embedded in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV).
This proposed technology is the spearhead in autonomous systems for the analysis of large tracts of land with minimal staff operation, maximizing the potential of vehicles using technologies Power Hybrid - Electric - Photovoltaic and Image Recognition Systems based in Artificial intelligence like Artificial Neural Networks.

Impacts of boreal forest fires have absorbed intensive attention because of huge fires in these years in Alaska as well as Siberia. To reduce impacts of forest fire in boreal forest area, the early fire detection is one of essential components in firefighting activity because of difficulties of fire suppressing in remote area without water. Here, we developed fire detection information system from receiving AVHRR to output fire detection map and validated the early detection algorithm using AVHRR satellite imagery. Forest fires were detected using an algorithm; two-dimensional histogram method by Prof. Kudo. This algorithm uses a threshold on mid-infrared band 3 and a two-dimensional histogram of visible band 1 and thermal infrared band 5 as a looking up table; these detection criteria corresponds becoming to burnt to black, thermal emission by burning. As a ground truth data, we collected reports of fires observed by local firefighters in Siberia and reports of JAL passenger flights. We compared satellite detected pixels with location of reported fires. We aggregated this comparison by fires to estimate the fire detection rate and early fire detection rate. We found the fire detection rate was surprisingly different between fires reported by firefighters and by passenger flights. Finally, we found the reason of the different fire detection rate as scale of fires observed. This implies difficulty on forest fire detection especially for small sized forest fires, and also implies the importance of ground truth data especially reported by fire fighters. We are planning extend the area collecting ground truth data delivered from local firefighting agencies in Alaska and Siberia from this summer season to validate the forest fire detection algorithms using AVHRR and MODIS. As a preparation, we made a system to detect forest fires every day automatically for area of entire Alaska last summer.

Carbon dioxide (CO 2) is an important greenhouse gas accounting for 60% of the total greenhouse effect. Soil is a major source for atmospheric CO 2. In the event of growing threats of global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions, reducing CO 2 emission by sequestering C in the soil is of prime importance. Soil management practices like increasing soil organic carbon content, reduced tillage, manuring, residue incorporation, improving soil biodiversity, micro-aggregation and mulching can play an important role in sequestering C in soil.

Peat swamp forest fire hazard areas were identified and mapped by integrating GIS-grid-based and multi-criteria analysis to provide valuable information about the areas most likely to be affected by fire in the Pekan District, south of Pahang, Malaysia. A spatially weighted index model was implemented to develop the fire hazard assessment model used in this study. Fire-causing factors such as land use, road network, slope, aspect and elevation data were used in this application. A two-mosaic Landsat TM scene was used to extract land use parameters of the study area. A triangle irregular network was generated from the digitized topographic map to produce a slope risk map, an aspect risk map and an elevation risk map. Spatial analysis was applied to reclassify and overlay all grid hazard maps to produce a final peat swamp forest fire hazard map. To validate the model, the actual fire occurrence map was compared with the fire hazard zone area derived from the model. The model can be used only for specific areas, and other criteria should be considered if the model is used for other areas. The results show that most of the actual fire spots are located in very high and high fire risk zones identified by the model.

A geographical information system (GIS) is proposed as a suitable tool for mapping the spatial distribution of forest ® re danger. Using a region severely a ected by forest ® res in Central Spain as the study area, topography, meteorological data, fuel models and human-caused risk were mapped and incorporated within a GIS. Three danger maps were generated: probability of ignition, fuel hazard and human risk, and all of them were overlaid in an integrated ® re danger map, based upon the criteria established by the Spanish Forest Service. GIS make it possible to improve our knowledge of the geographical distribution of ® re danger, which is crucial for suppression planning (particularly when hotshot crews are involved) and for elaborating regional ® re defence plans.

This paper identifies human factors associated with high forest fire risk in Spain and analyses the spatial distribution of fire occurrence in the country. The spatial units were 6,066 municipalities of the Spanish peninsular territory and Balearic Islands. The study covered a 13-year series of fire occurrence data. One hundred and eight variables were generated and input to a dedicated Geographic Information System (GIS) to model different factors related to fire ignition. After exploratory analysis, 29 were selected to build a predictive model of human fire ignition using logistic regression analysis. The binary model estimated the probability of high or low occurrence of forest fires, as defined by an ignition danger index that is currently used by the Spanish forest service (number of fires divided by forest area in each municipality). Thirteen explanatory variables were identified by the model. They were related to agricultural landscape fragmentation, agricultural abandonment and development processes. The prediction agreement found between the model binary outputs and the historical fire data was 85.3% for the model building dataset (60% of municipalities). A slightly lower predictive power (76.2%) was found for the validation data (the remaining 40%). The probabilistic output of the logistic was significantly related to the raw ignition index (Spearman correlation of 0.710) used by the Spanish Forest Service. Therefore, the model can be considered a good predictor of human-caused fire risk, aiding spatial decisions related to prevention planning in Spanish municipalities.

The substrate-bound nanowires were sonicated in ethanol and deposited on oxidized degenerately doped silicon wafers or copper grids for electrical transport and TEM measurements, respectively. Electron-beam lithography was employed to define contact regions with subsequent deposition of Ti/Au electrodes, as described previously 3 . Effective mobilities were calculated according to the method of ref. 26. Additional details are provided in the Supplementary Information. The integrity of the SiO x gate dielectric in the coaxially gated nanowire transistors was confirmed by the low, ,5 pA, gate to sourcedrain leakage currents. The continuity of the p-Ge outer shell was verified by two-terminal resistance measurements on the shell itself.

Mediterranean forests are characterised by a remarkable set of features that make them naturally and aesthetically attractive, on the one hand, but also quite fragile, on the other, therefore calling for careful strategies for their conservation and management. An exceptionally large variation of environmental conditions characterises the Mediterranean countries, where the environment can limit forest growth and succession but can also give rise, more often than it is supposed, to lush, mesic forest ecosystems, similar to those of central Europe. Moreover, Mediterranean forests contain an ample, plant and animal biological diversity, exempli®ed by the large number of tree species as compared to Nordic forests, and by their relatively high genetic variability due to the survival of many conifer and broadleaf species in southern European refuges, during the glacial periods. Another peculiar aspect of this region is the long-lasting manipulation of trees, forests and landscapes, since ancient times, with the diffusion all over the Mediterranean basin of such species as Pinus pinea, Cupressus sempervirens, Castanea sativa, and Quercus suber. The harsh and unpredictable climate, the dif®cult socio-economic conditions and the history of over-exploitation of the Mediterranean forests require that a scienti®cally sound conservation strategy and a locally-tailored sustainable management should be implemented. In particular, the need for identifying those silvicultural and management strategies appropriate for southern European forests should be stressed. Obviously, this consideration will have important effects on the de®nition of criteria for sustainability and eco-certi®cation. Also, social issues should be considered key factors for effective forest conservation in the Mediterranean region, otherwise it will be impossible to control forest ®res and landscape degradation.

We present and illustrate the simulation results of a cellular automata model describing the dynamics of a forest fire spread on a mountainous landscape taking into account factors such as the type and density of vegetation, the wind speed and direction and the spotting phenomenon. The model is used to simulate the wildfire that broke up on Spetses in August of 1990 and destroyed a major part of the Island's forest. We used a black-box non-linear optimization approach to fine-tune some of the model's parameters based on a geographical information system incorporating available data from the real forest fire. The comparison between the simulation and the actual-observed results showed that the proposed model predicts in a quite adequate manner the evolution characteristics in space and time of the real incident and as such could be potentially used to develop a fire risk-management tool for heterogeneous landscapes.

Portugal is the only European Mediterranean country where the annual average burnt area has increased in the last two decades. Although forest fires at national level annually represent very important losses, few studies evaluated the mortality and the capacity of auto-regeneration of the different tree species in burnt areas. After a wildfire that occurred in September 2003, we started a research project in a public protected area in central west Portugal. The main goal of this study, still ongoing, is to evaluate the postfire regeneration capacity of different tree species occurring in the country. We expect to quantify the survival/mortality rates of selected tree species in relation to variables such as fire severity, tree height and diameter, and evaluate species regeneration strategies as well as their growth rates after fire disturbance. In this study 667 trees from 11 species were selected for monitoring, namely: Castanea sativa, Crataegus monogyna, Eucalyptus globulus, Fraxinus angustifolia, Olea europaea var. sylvestris, Pinus pinaster, Pinus pinea, Pistacia lentiscus, Quercus coccifera, Quercus faginea and Quercus suber. Results obtained two springs after fire, show that almost all broadleaved trees (9 species) survived to the fire. Contrarily, the majority of coniferous trees died after the fire. Despite the very low mortality observed in broadleaved trees, most of them didn't regenerate from the crown, but only from the base, trunk or roots, which means that the recovering process will be much slower. Exceptions to this were cork oak and eucalyptus. Within native species, Quercus suber is by far the most resilient to fire. For most part of the monitored tree species, which resprouted from the base of the trunk, Eucalyptus globulus was the one that recovered faster, followed by Fraxinus angustifolia and Quercus faginea.

Forest fires and burnt area in Portugal have been increasing in the last decades, contrarily to other southern European countries, although more resources are being allocated to prevention, detection and fire fighting. To minimize the probability of wildfires occurrence, it is crucial to assure the effectiveness of the prevention, vigilance and first attack operations. When fire prevention fails, fire fighting steps must be initiated, but this can only happen following detection. In Portugal the National Lookout Towers Network (NLTN) is the principal organized fire detection system, working together with some ground and aerial mobile units. However very few studies evaluated these systems effectiveness or contributed to know the lookout areas covered and which are the problematic areas not covered. In last years we characterized and evaluated the NLTN system in Portugal and produced several national cartography including visibility and vigilance priority maps. Using this cartography...

The study aims to assess the landscape vulnerability to forest fire susceptibility of Rudraprayag district, India, using frequency ratio model. Firstly, forest-fire-affected pixels were identified by using normalized difference burning ratio and ground survey. A total of 19,834 forest fire pixels were identified; out of these, 14,876 (70%) pixels were used to generate forest fire susceptibility map and the remaining 4958 affected pixels (30%) were used to validate the susceptibility model. Twelve forest fire conditioning indicators were selected: slope angle, slope aspect, curvature, elevation, topographic wetness index, soil texture, land use/land cover, normalized difference moisture index, annual average rainfall, road buffer, distance from settlement and distance from drainage to build the forest fire susceptibility model. Receiver operating characteristic curve was used to validate the forest fire susceptibility map, and 85% prediction accuracy was found. Final landscape vulnerability to forest fire susceptibility was assessed by using overlay function in GIS environment. The result shows that 73% area of Rudraprayag district falls into low and moderate susceptibility classes and approximately 16% area falls into high and very high susceptibility classes. Landscape vulnerability analysis revealed that moderate and very high forest fire susceptibility occupies the inaccessible parts of the core forest area of the district.

La cuenca Boconó-Tucupido, perteneciente a los estados Barinas y Portuguesa, presenta muchas problemáticas a nivel ambiental; una de ellas es por los efectos perjudiciales que han traído los incendios forestales sobre el sistema de embalses Boconó-Tucupido, es por ello en el presente trabajo se realiza un diagnóstico para obtener información sobre la situación del fuego en la zona a fin de generar una propuesta para manejar integralmente el fuego. La mayor parte de la población usa el fuego como herramienta para diversos fines, principalmente para la quema de desechos. Al momento de usar el fuego por los habitantes se toman medidas de precaución pero que resultan insuficientes para considerarlas realmente como quemas controladas y que pueden resultar incendios forestales, sin embargo estas quemas no son las principales causas que da inicio a los fuegos incontrolados, siendo la principal el descuido de las personas al arrojar cigarros o fósforos encendidos, vandalismo y pirómanos. Conociendo la importancia del fuego para la población de la zona el programa propuesto está abordado bajo el concepto de Manejo Integral del Fuego con enfoques de participación comunitaria mediante la creación de Brigadas Ambientales Voluntarias, además se proponen cuatro (4) líneas básicas de acción, a saber: prevención, presupresión y respuesta, investigación y estadísticas, y por último la restauración y mantenimiento, siendo la prevención la línea más importante que debe ejecutar la empresa CORPOELEC-DESURCA.
Palabras claves: Manejo, integral, incendios, fuego, Boconó-Tucupido.

This paper provides an overview of four national forest fire management information systems currently used in Canada. The Canadian forest fire danger rating system (CFFDRS) is a non-spatial system, which provides the science framework for fire danger rating in Canada. The spatial fire management system (sFMS) is a geographic information system based fire management information system that implements two core subsystems of the CFFDRS, along with other models and systems. The sFMS is the spatial engine that has been used to implement both of Canada's national forest fire management information systems, the Canadian wildland fire information system (CWFIS) and the fire monitoring, mapping and modeling system (Fire M3). The CWFIS is Canada's national fire management information system; it presents daily information on fire weather, fire behavior potential and selected upper atmospheric conditions. Fire M3 integrates the use of satellite technology for monitoring and mapping large fire occurrence in Canada. Fire M3 also incorporates information from CWFIS to model the impacts of large forest fires based on fire weather conditions and potential fire behavior. Crown

Fires ignited by lightning are not considered a serious problem in Europe and, in particular, the Mediterranean region where lightning is only a minor cause of forest fires. In the Central Alps and especially on the southern slope of the Alps, however, lightning fires are common in summer time, have increased in frequency, and resulted in increasing costs for their control. Based on historical records dating back over several decades, we analysed frequency, distribution pattern, differences in features as compared with man-induced fires, and relationships with meteorological conditions for representative regions of the Central Alps (cantons of Valais and the Grisons in Switzerland) and the southern slope of the Alps (Valle d'Aosta in Italy and canton of Ticino in southern Switzerland). In the Alps, lightning-induced fires occur from May to October with a peak in July-August (78% of the events!). These fires differ from fires of anthropogenic origin in geographic distribution and duration. For example, lightning-induced fires occur at higher elevations on steeper relief and are usually harder to extinguish because of underground fires. In hot and dry summers, such as the drought-period in summer 2003, lightning-fires have become particularly frequent with significant higher burned area and fighting costs. This is an important point that has to be taken in consideration in view of the postulated climate change toward an increase in severity and frequency of prolonged summer drought-periods.

We studied the in¯uence of anthropogenic disturbance on forest structure and composition in the highly populated Montane Rain Forests of northern Chiapas, Mexico. We evaluated species richness, basal area and stem density on 81 circular plots (0.1 ha each) along a categorical disturbance gradient due to forest extraction, livestock grazing, and ®res. A total of 116 tree species (>5 cm DBH) were recorded in three major forest types recognized by TWINSPAN. The three forest types were: Quercus±Podocarpus Forest (QPF), Pinus±Quercus±Liquidambar Forest (PQLF), and Pinus Forest (PF). The number of canopy and understory trees species, absolute density, and basal area decreased with disturbance intensity. Mean basal area of Pinus spp. was high at intermediate and severe disturbed sites (27 and 19 m 2 ha À1 , respectively), and low (0.2 m 2 ha À1 ) in well preserved old-growth stands. Distribution of life forms was heterogeneous among forest types, with a high number of understory trees species in QPF, and an impoverished composition in PF. A ®rst axis obtained by factor analysis, represented a combination of anthropogenic disturbance along with environmental and structural variables. Scores of the ®rst factor explained almost 50% of variation, and was positively correlated with livestock grazing, ®rewood extraction, basal area of Pinus spp. and soil pH, and negatively associated with elevation, plant cover and basal area of Quercus spp. A second factor explained an additional 12% of variation and was associated with forest ®res and timber extraction. Distribution of size classes in the QPF was signi®cantly different p < 0:05 than in the other two forest types, including the largest individuals in all inventories. Our results suggest that small scale, but frequent anthropogenic disturbance, increases the dominance of Pinus and drastically decreases¯oristic richness, mostly understory trees. This points to the need of developing restoration practices aimed to attain highly diverse mixed forests from induced depauperate pinelands. On the other hand, the remnant MRF stands are currently under risk of deforestation in a highly populated Mayan territory, and their conservation under criteria of sustainable use may require ®nding alternative high value uses not included in conventional commercial forestry. #

Burn severity estimation is a key factor in the post-fire management. Previous studies using remotely sensed data to retrieve burn severity, as measured by the Composite Burn Index (CBI), have found inconsistencies, since spectral indices work well in some ecosystems but not in others. These inconsistencies may be caused by the lack of spectral uniqueness in the CBI definition, or by the performance of the spectral indices used. This paper analyses the former aspect, using a simulation analysis to study the relationships between the CBI and reflectance. Subsequently, a modified version of this index, called GeoCBI, is proposed to improve the retrieval of burn severity from remotely sensed data. GeoCBI takes into account the fraction of cover (FCOV) of the different vegetation strata used to compute the CBI. Moreover, it also includes the changes in the leaf area index (LAI) for the intermediate and tall tree strata (D+E). Field and simulation results show that GeoCBI is more consistently related to spectral reflectance than CBI for different ranges of burn severities, while keeping its ecological meaning.

SUMMARY - &quot;Current state and degradation of the Algerian pistachio orchards&quot;. Pistacia atlantica is widespread in South Algeria (semi-arid and arid regions). It can grow and stand strong winds and long periods of drought. The main factors that contribute to its degradation are wood exploitation, forest fires and animal action. The seeds called ElKhodiri by the local population are used

Vegetation cover is an important factor influencing the occurrence and movement of rainfalltriggered landslides, and changes to vegetation cover often result in modified landslide behaviour. However, it is difficult to relate the occurrence of landslides directly to variations in land use, especially in some European countries. In contrast, New Zealand provides a good opportunity to investigate geomorphic responses to anthropogenic land cover changes. Before European settlers first arrived in the 1840s, hilly regions were only marginally influenced by human activity. The Maoris, New Zealand's first settlers, lived largely on coastal plains or near lakes and rivers. They influenced general vegetation cover only through localized burning practices. In contrast, European settlers moved into the back country and converted extensive hill areas from native forest and bush to pasture. This reduced the strength of the regolith and rendered the slopes more susceptible to landslides. Pulses of natural sedimentation in the pre-European period have been related to volcanic activity, climatic variability, including changes in frequency of cyclonic storms and wind erosion and fluvial erosion following forest fires initiated either by volcanic eruptions or lightning strikes. Since European deforestation began, sediment production has largely been determined by landslide events. On unstable slopes, thousands of landslides were triggered by high-magnitude/lowfrequency climatic events during storms with estimated return periods in excess of 50 years. In contrast, low-magnitude/high-frequency rainfall events have caused gully and channel erosion. Examples from different parts of New Zealand indicate changes in sediment-generating processes following land use modifications. After deforestation, landslides have contributed significantly to sediment sequences in depositional basins such as lakes, swamps, estuaries, coastal wetlands and the nearshore and offshore zones of continental platforms. D

Soil erosion by water (WSE) has become a relevant issue at the Mediterranean level. In particular, natural conditions and human impact have made the Calabria (southern Italy) particularly prone to intense WSE. The purpose of this investigation is to identify areas highly affected by WSE in Calabria by comparing the scenarios obtained by assuming control and preventive measures and actions, as well as actual conditions generated by forest fires, also in the presence of conditions of maximum rainfall erosion. Geographic Information System techniques have been adopted to treat data of reasonable spatial resolution obtained at a regional scale for application to the RUSLE model. This work is based on the comparison of such data with a basic scenario that has been defined by the present situation (present scenario). In this scenario: (i) R has been assessed by means of an experimental relation adjusted to Calabria on the basis of 5-min observations; (ii) K has been drawn from the soil map of Calabria including 160 soilscapes; (iii) LS has been estimated according to the RUSLE2 model by using (among other subfactors) a 40-m square cell DTM; (iv) C has been derived by processing the data inferred from the project Corine Land Cover, whose legend includes 35 different land uses on three levels; and (v) P has been hypothesized as equal to 1. For the remaining three hypothesized scenarios, the RUSLE factors have been adjusted according to experimental data and to data in the literature. In particular, forest areas subject to fire have been randomly generated as far as fire location, extension, structure, and intensity are concerned. The values obtained by the application of the RUSLE model have emphasized that land management by means of measures and actions for reducing WSE causes a notable reduction of the erosive rate decreasing from~30 to 12.3 Mg ha − 1 y − 1 . On the other hand, variations induced by hypothetical wildfires in forests on 10% of the regional territory bring WSE over the whole region to values varying from 30 to 116 Mg ha − 1 y − 1 . This study can be offered to territorial planning authorities as an evaluation instrument as it highlights the merits and limitations of some territorial management actions. In fact, in Calabria no observations exist concerning the implications of these actions.

We propose a new spectral index, the Normalized Difference Fraction Index (NDFI), for enhanced detection of forest canopy damage caused by selective logging activities and associated forest fires. The NDFI synthesizes information from several component fraction images derived from spectral mixture models. Interpretation of the NDFI data is facilitated by a contextual classification algorithm (CCA) that enables accurate mapping of logging and fire-derived canopy damages. The CCA utilizes detected log landings, which are the spatial signature of selective logging, as starting locations for searching the NDFI image for canopy damage. This process separates canopy changes due to logging and associated forest fires from those caused by other natural disturbances. These methods were tested in the Sinop region, in the Southern Brazilian Amazon. Forest transect inventories, conducted along a gradient of degraded forests, were used to evaluated the performance of the NDFI. The NDFI was more sensitive to canopy damage than any individual fraction and is shown to have the potential for further sub-classification of degradation levels in forest environments. Map accuracy of forest canopy damage using the CCA classifier, assessed with aerial videography images, was 94%. The proposed NDFI-CCA classifier approach can be fully automated and, therefore, holds great promise as a forest monitoring tool in tropical forests. D

This study in the wake of 1990s fire catastrophes identifies and analyzes underlying causes of vegetation fires in eight locations across Borneo and Sumatra. Multidisciplinary and multiscale analysis integrates geospatial technologies with varied social research approaches and participatory mapping. It helps fill a void of site-specific evidence on diverse underlying causes of the Indonesian fires, despite emerging consensus on macrolevel causes and impacts, and policy debates on preventing future fire disasters. Our most important findings include confirmation of multiple direct and underlying fire causes at each of the eight locations, no single dominant fire cause at any site, and wide differences in fire causes among sites. Conclusions emphasize the importance of location specific studies within a regional analytical context. Our "hybrid" research methods demonstrate the explanatory power of integrating geospatial and social analysis techniques, and the benefits of analyzing fire causes and impacts at multiple scales in varied locations across diverse regions.

Natural disturbances play a key role in ecosystem dynamics and are important factors for sustainable forest ecosystem management. Quantitative models are frequently employed to tackle the complexities associated with disturbance processes. Here we review the wide variety of approaches to modelling natural disturbances in forest ecosystems, addressing the full spectrum of disturbance modelling from single events to integrated disturbance regimes. We applied a general, process-based framework founded in disturbance ecology to analyze modelling approaches for drought, wind, forest fires, insect pests and ungulate browsing. Modelling approaches were reviewed by disturbance agent and mechanism, and a set of general disturbance modelling concepts was deduced. We found that although the number of disturbance modelling approaches emerging over the last 15 years has increased strongly, statistical concepts for descriptive modelling are still largely prevalent over mechanistic concepts for explanatory and predictive applications. Yet, considering the increasing importance of disturbances for forest dynamics and ecosystem stewardship under anthropogenic climate change, the latter concepts are crucial tool for understanding and coping with change in forest ecosystems. Current challenges for disturbance modelling in forest ecosystems are thus (i) to overcome remaining limits in process understanding, (ii) to further a mechanistic foundation in disturbance modelling, (iii) to integrate multiple disturbance processes in dynamic ecosystem models for decision support in forest management, and (iv) to bring together scaling capabilities across several levels of organization with a representation of system complexity that captures the emergent behaviour of disturbance regimes.

This paper documents the spread mechanisms of spot fires and their behaviour during a severe bushfire attack in a hilly forested landscape. The study assesses their association with wind speed and direction, potential firebrand source areas and the spotting distances. Apart from augmenting the body of knowledge about Australian fire behaviour, it is hoped that this article helps dispel misunderstandings about the nature and genesis of spot fires during severe bushfires and encourages renewed interest in their effective management rather than declaring them an uncontrollable act of Mother Nature. 
The theory section should also be useful in devising strategies to mitigate or prevent spot fire damage before the next severe fire attack.

In this work a new model for fire front spreading based on two-dimensional cellular automata is proposed. It is a more realistic modification of the model introduced by Karafyllidis and Thanailakis (see [Karafyllidis I, Thanailakis A. A model for predicting forest fire spreading using cellular automata. Ecol Model 1997;99:87-97]), which is based on the transfer of fractional burned area. Specifically, the model proposed in this work introduces a more accurate factor of propagation from a diagonal neighbor cell and includes, in a detailed form, the rate of fire spread. Moreover, the model is useful for both homogeneous and inhomogeneous environments. Some tests have been passed in order to determine the goodness of the method.

The characteristics and variability of tree diameter distributions were studied in natural and managed old Pinus sylvestris L.dominated forests in the middle boreal vegetation zone of eastern Fennoscandia. The managed forest stands in the study were located in Häme in southwestern Finland, and the natural stands were located in the Vienansalo wilderness area in northwestern Russia. In natural stands, the mean tree density (tree height > 1.3 m) was significantly higher compared to managed stands, but the two stand categories did not differ in their total basal areas. The shape of the pooled diameter distribution was descending in natural stands and bimodal in managed stands. Within the two stand categories, there was considerable stand-to-stand variation in the shapes of diameter distributions. In general, the range in diameters was larger in natural stands compared to managed ones. This was because large living trees (diameter > 40 cm) were common in natural stands, while in managed stands they were almost totally lacking. Natural stands where the last forest fire occurred 50-60 years ago differed clearly from stands with a longer time lapse since the last fire, particularly in having a higher density of small trees. Diameter distributions were characterized with indices, such as Shannon and Siipilehto, and the Gini coefficient. Taken separately, these indices poorly described and segregated diameter distributions, but with several indices it was possible to characterize the differences between diameter distributions. Both natural and managed stands had heterogeneous diameter distributions, but managed stands lacked some structural features, such as large trees and trees with structural diversity characteristics, which are likely to reduce their ability to sustain high biodiversity. Our results demonstrate that high variability of tree sizes and stand structures is an important diversity feature of naturally dynamic Pinus-dominated forests in Fennoscandia. #

This paper presents a cooperative perception system for multiple heterogeneous UAVs. It considers different kind of sensors: infrared and visual cameras and fire detectors. The system is based on a set of multipurpose low-level image-processing functions including segmentation, stabilization of sequences of images and geo-referencing, and it also involves data fusion algorithms for cooperative perception. It has been tested in field experiments that pursued autonomous multi-UAV cooperative detection, monitoring and measurement of forest fires. This paper presents the overall architecture of the perception system, describes some of the implemented cooperative perception techniques and shows experimental results on automatic forest fire detection and localization with cooperating UAVs.

Alkaline soils are considered much less prone to developing water repellency induced by fire than acidic soils. Here we report on the persistence of water repellency present in calcareous soils immediately after wildfires in 10 burned areas in SE Spain, its distribution in different aggregate size fractions (b 2, 2-1, 1-0.5, 0.5-0.25 and b 0.25 mm) and on results from aggregate stability tests. We also distinguished between soil samples taken beneath pine (Pinus halepensis) and beneath understory vegetation.

Fire-induced or enhanced soil water repellency is often viewed as a key cause of the substantial increases in runoff and erosion following severe wildfires. In this study, the effects of different fire severities on soil water repellency are examined in eucalypt forest catchments in the Sandstone Tablelands near Sydney, burnt in 2001 and 2003. At sites affected by different fire severities and in long-unburnt control sites, repellency persistence was determined in situ and in the laboratory for surface and subsurface soil samples (nZ846) using the Water Drop Penetration Time (WDPT) test. All long-unburnt samples were found to be water repellent, with severe to extreme persistence (O900 s) being dominant for surface (0-2.5 cm) and slight to moderate persistence (10-900 s) for subsurface (2.5-5 cm) soil, indicating naturally very high 'background' levels of repellency. In contrast to the generation or enhancement of repellency usually reported following forest fires of similar severity in previous studies, burning caused widespread destruction of repellency. The mineral soil depth to which repellency was destroyed (0.5-5 cm) was found to increase with burn severity. Below this charred wettable layer, persistence of pre-existing water repellency increased. Two years after the fire, the frequency of extreme repellency persistence was reduced in the surface and subsurface. However, recovery to pre-fire repellency levels had not been achieved.

Areas affected by forest fires that occurred in 2005 were mapped in the municipalities of Boca do Acre and Lábrea (in the southern part of Brazil’s state of Amazonas) and estimates were made of the loss of biomass and carbon stock and the committed emissions from increased tree mortality due to fire. Fire scars observed on Landsat-5 TM satellite images from 2004 to 2006 were visually interpreted and digitized; over 865.6 km2 of forest affected by fire were mapped, the majority (2.9% of the total forest cover) concentrated along the southern edges of the municipalities, which border on the states of Rondônia and Acre. The greatest loss of biomass due to the increase in tree mortality was indicated by the survey made 4 years after the fires: 4.5 × 106 Mg total (above + below-ground) and 3.7 × 106 Mg (only above-ground). Consequently, 2.2 × 106 Mg C (total) and 1.8 × 106 Mg C (above-ground) of potential carbon emissions were committed from the initial burn of forest biomass and from trees killed by the fire. Emissions occur both through oxidation of dead biomass by decomposition or through combustion in subsequent fire events. Our results indicate that fires can affect extensive tracts of forest and can emit significant amounts of carbon to the atmosphere in periods of drought. Fire plays a significant role as a threat to the biological balance of the forest and causes loss of biomass and emission of greenhouse gases that have critical implications for the future of forests in the Amazon.► Forest fires occurred in western Amazonia during a major drought in 2005. ► Carbon emissions are estimated from biomass maps and satellite images. ► Forest fires represent a major but relatively little-studied degradation source. ► Predicted climatic changes make this form of perturbation a major concern.

Many studies have assessed the process of forest degradation in the Brazilian Amazon using remote sensing approaches to estimate the extent and impact by selective logging and forest fires on tropical rain forest. However, only a few have estimated the combined impacts of those anthropogenic activities. We conducted a detailed analysis of selective logging and forest fire impacts on natural forests in the southern Brazilian Amazon state of Mato Grosso, one of the key logging centers in the country. To achieve this goal a 13-year series of annual Landsat images (1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004) was used to test different remote sensing techniques for measuring the extent of selective logging and forest fires, and to estimate their impact and interaction with other land use types occurring in the study region. Forest canopy regeneration following these disturbances was also assessed. Field measurements and visual observations were conducted to validate remote sensing techniques. Our results indicated that the Modified Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index aerosol free (MSAVI af ) is a reliable estimator of fractional coverage under both clear sky and under smoky conditions in this study region. During the period of analysis, selective logging was responsible for disturbing the largest proportion (31%) of natural forest in the study area, immediately followed by deforestation (29%). Altogether, forest disturbances by selective logging and forest fires affected approximately 40% of the study site area. Once disturbed by selective logging activities, forests became more susceptible to fire in the study site. However, our results showed that fires may also occur in undisturbed forests. This indicates that there are further factors that may increase forest fire susceptibility in the study area. Those factors need to be better understood. Although selective logging affected the largest amount of natural forest in the study period, 35% and 28% of the observed losses of forest canopy cover were due to forest fire and selective logging combined and to forest fire only, respectively. Moreover, forest areas degraded by selective logging and forest fire is an addition to outright deforestation estimates and has yet to be accounted for by land use and land cover change assessments in tropical regions. Assuming that this observed trend of land use and land cover conversion continues, we predict that there will be no undisturbed forests remaining by 2011 in this study site. Finally, we estimated that 70% of the total forest area disturbed by logging and fire had sufficiently recovered to become undetectable using satellite data in 2004.

The magnitude of the environmental and social consequences of soil erosion and land degradation in semiarid areas of the Mediterranean region has long been recognized and studied. This paper investigates the interrelationship between land use/cover (LULC) changes and land degradation using remotely sensed and ancillary data for southeastern Spain. The area of study, the Xaló River catchment situated in the north of the Alicante Province, has been subjected to a number of LULC changes during the second half of the 20th century such as agricultural abandonment, forest fires, and tourist development. Aerial photographs dating back to 1956 were used for the delineation of historic LULC types; Landsat ETM+ data were used for the analysis and mapping of current conditions. Two important indicators of land degradation, namely, susceptibility to surface runoff and soil erosion, were estimated for the two dates using easily parametrizable models. The comparison of 1956 to 2000 conditions shows an overall ''recuperating'' trend over the catchment and increased susceptibility to soil erosion only in 3% of the catchment area. The results also identify potential degradation hot-spots where mitigation measures should be taken to prevent further degradation. The readily implemented methodology, based on modest data requirements demonstrated by this study, is a useful tool for catchment to regional scale land use change and land degradation studies and strategic planning for environmental management.

Although there are different results from different studies, most assessments indicate that climate variability would have negative effects on agriculture and forestry in the humid and sub-humid tropics. Cereal crop yields would decrease generally with even minimal increases in temperature. For commercial crops, extreme events such as cyclones, droughts and floods lead to larger damages than only changes of mean climate. Impacts of climate variability on livestock mainly include two aspects; impacts on animals such as increase of heat and disease stress-related death, and impacts on pasture. As to forestry, climate variability would have negative as well as some positive impacts on forests of humid and sub-humid tropics. However, in most tropical regions, the impacts of human activities such as deforestation will be more important than climate variability and climate change in determining natural forest cover.

The book is envisioned to embrace the environment, society, and culture of the Mediterranean in their multiple and unique interconnections over the millennia and to contribute to the better understanding of the essential human-environmental interrelations throughout the history of the Mediterranean.  The choice of 17 chapters of the book, written by a number of prominent scholars and scientists, clearly shows the necessity of the interdisciplinary approach to the Mediterranean identity issues. The book reflects some of the current thinking on the subject, based on a vast body of literature, but also opens new insights and perspectives.