Ecohydrology-based management as a tool for preventing wildfires in the Mediterranean urban interface area
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The adaptation to climate change of forest areas with intense anthropic pressure requires innovative management models characterized by an increasingly efficient use of available resources. In Mediterranean areas, the most intense and persistent droughts alter the water relations in the soil-plant-atmosphere (SPA) continuum and therefore the flammability of the vegetation and the risk of wildfires. The main aim of this work is to present the potential of using detailed information characterizing the SPA for estimating key variables used for forest fire prevention. To this end, physiological, ecohydrological and meteorological measurements (water potential, soil/plant water content, sap flow, etc.) are carried out to model the response of live fuel moisture content (LFMC) to environmental conditions in representative Aleppo pine plots located in a forested area close to Valencia city (Spain). In addition, spectral indexes estimated from Sentinel bands (NDVI, EVI, NDMI, MSI, RGR, BSI and NDWI) are also tested for obtaining the spatio-temporal dynamics of LFMC at the forestscale. The results show the importance of assessing LFMC along the entire hydrological year due to its variation with phenology: minimum values are obtained at the beginning of spring (81.3%, 64mm of soil water content in the profile and 0.2Kpa of VPD) vs. 90.1% during the driest environmental (summer) conditions (18mm of soil water content and 1.9Kpa of VPD). Combining physiological and environmental predictors provides good estimations of LFMC (R 2 >0.70-0.84 in several cases). In addition, RGR, BSI and NDWI indexes are found to be promising predictors of LFMC (R2= 0.7). Efforts such as the one presented here to link a detailed SPA characterization with fire prevention are innovative and emerging, but also necessary when realistic estimations of LFMC dynamics are required. Particularly, our results will serve to improve the forest management of Mediterranean forests, allowing for the precise prediction and identification of forest wildfire behavior and risk thresholds (from surface fire to crown fire), but also the design of optimum irrigation schemes to decrease the risk of crown fires as those with the highest negative impacts.
Keywords: live fuel moisture content; ecohydrology; fire weather index; wildland-urban interface; sapflow
ID: 3623757