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Building Wildfire Disaster Resilience and Climate Change Adaptation

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Hazards and Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2021) | Viewed by 8081

Special Issue Editors

Department of Environment and Geography, University of York, Wentworth Way, York YO10 5NG, UK
Interests: environmental; resource, and ecological economics; biodiversity conservation; invasive species management; natural hazards and sustainability
Forest Policy and Economics Research, Southern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Forestry Sciences Laboratory, PO Box 12254, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA
Interests: human-ignited wildfires; green crime; forest product markets and trade
Department of Quantitative Economics, University of Santiago de Compostela, Avda Xoán XXIII s/n, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Interests: social and economic analysis of forest fires; natural and resource economics; forest economics; natural hazards; material flows
Applied Economics Office, Engineering Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, 100 Bureau Drive, Mailstop 8603, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8603, USA
Interests: economic impacts of wildfire and structure fire; environmental and resource economics; spatial analysis; community resilience

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Despite continuous efforts to manage wildfires, year after year of record-breaking fire seasons are increasingly causing ecosystem service declines and losses in human lives, and they are creating impacts on local livelihoods, water supply, river flows, forest and tourism industries, and human health. The recent catastrophic events in Brazilian Amazon, New South Wales and Queensland (Australia), and California and Tennessee (US) reminds us that wildfire preparedness and early response strategies should be also at the center of climate adaptation action, including rethinking how we can better create resilient local and global communities to manage an inevitable fire risk. For this Special Issue of the journal, we invite contributions that promote a better understanding of private actions and policies that can advance socioecological resilience to wildfire. We are especially interested in innovative studies that emphasize the emerging area of research into (1) the causal drivers of disaster impacts and associated economic outcomes, (2) the effects of climate and societal changes on the frequencies, severities, and spatial extents of catastrophic wildfire events, (3) the effects of alternative interventions targeting wildfire disasters, including those associated with laws, regulations, and wildland management, and (4) risk finance mechanisms that can mitigate the ecological and economic impacts of wildfire in advance of a disaster.  

Dr. Julia Touza-Montero
Dr. Jeff Prestemon
Dr. Maria-Luisa Chas-Amil
Dr. David Butry
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • wildfires disasters
  • socioecological resilience
  • economics of natural hazards
  • financing resilience
  • environmental policy

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 6072 KiB  
Article
Study of Forest Productivity in the Occurrence of Forest Fires in Galicia (Spain)
by Gervasio López-Rodríguez, Verónica Rodríguez-Vicente and Manuel F. Marey-Pérez
Sustainability 2021, 13(15), 8472; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13158472 - 29 Jul 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2041
Abstract
The occurrence and intensity of forest fires is a phenomenon in which factors of various kinds converge, including climatic, physiographic, socioeconomic and territorial, among others. While the scientific literature has been stating that the causes of fires are related social conflict, other factors [...] Read more.
The occurrence and intensity of forest fires is a phenomenon in which factors of various kinds converge, including climatic, physiographic, socioeconomic and territorial, among others. While the scientific literature has been stating that the causes of fires are related social conflict, other factors must also be considered for a more thorough analysis. In Galicia (northwest Spain), human-caused fires account for up to 95% of the total annual fires, highlighting the importance of examining in detail social and/or economic factors that may influence the occurrence or absence of this type of phenomenon. This paper discusses the influence and weight of forest productivity and the potential economic value of wooded areas on the incidence of forest fires in private mountains of collective ownership (montes vecinales en mano común). Our results indicate that the presence of productive wooded areas of the region determines a lower incidence, both in terms of the number of forest fires and the area affected. It was found that in areas where there was a loss in productivity, the fire rate increased by almost 36%. It is also observed that in MVMCs with productivity gain, the incidence of fires in shrubland areas was 46.26% higher than in wooded areas, while in MVMCs with productivity loss, the occurrence of fires in shrubland areas was 18.95% higher than that observed in wooded areas. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Building Wildfire Disaster Resilience and Climate Change Adaptation)
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13 pages, 1395 KiB  
Article
Different Strategies for Resilience to Wildfires: The Experience of Collective Land Ownership in Galicia (Northwest Spain)
by Manuel Marey-Perez, Xurxo Loureiro, Eduardo José Corbelle-Rico and Cristina Fernández-Filgueira
Sustainability 2021, 13(9), 4761; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13094761 - 23 Apr 2021
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2649
Abstract
Resilience is not a particularly novel concept, but it has recently become frequently used as a measurement indicator of adaptation capacity under different approaches depending on the field of study. Ideally, for example, forest ecosystems would be resilient to wildfires, one of the [...] Read more.
Resilience is not a particularly novel concept, but it has recently become frequently used as a measurement indicator of adaptation capacity under different approaches depending on the field of study. Ideally, for example, forest ecosystems would be resilient to wildfires, one of the most serious types of perturbation they are subjected to. In areas such as the northwest of Spain, a region with one of the most severe records of wildfire occurrence in western Europe, resilience indicators should be related with changes in land planning aimed to minimize the effects of forest fires. This article aimed to analyze the fire resilience strategies of a selected group of forest communities in northwest Spain. More specifically, the perceived risk of wildfires was compared with the actual record of fire events in these communities and the presence or absence of adaptive changes in management practices to reduce risk and improve recovery capacity. A mixed quantitative–qualitative approach was used to gather information about good practices, innovative solutions, and major obstacles for forest fire resilience in Galician common lands. The results suggest that while there is no single form of successful management, a key characteristic of resilient communities is the integration of fire as a management tool. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Building Wildfire Disaster Resilience and Climate Change Adaptation)
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14 pages, 2289 KiB  
Article
Ignition Vulnerabilities of Combustibles around Houses to Firebrand Showers: Further Comparison of Experiments
by Sayaka Suzuki and Samuel L. Manzello
Sustainability 2021, 13(4), 2136; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13042136 - 17 Feb 2021
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2333
Abstract
Wildland fires and wildland urban-interface (WUI) fires have become a significant problem in recent years. The mechanisms of home ignition in WUI fires are direct flame contact, thermal radiation, and firebrand attack. Out of these three fire spread factors, firebrands are considered to [...] Read more.
Wildland fires and wildland urban-interface (WUI) fires have become a significant problem in recent years. The mechanisms of home ignition in WUI fires are direct flame contact, thermal radiation, and firebrand attack. Out of these three fire spread factors, firebrands are considered to be a main driving force for rapid fire spread as firebrands can fly far from the fire front and ignite structures. The limited experimental data on firebrand showers limits the ability to design the next generation of communities to resist WUI fires to these types of exposures. The objective of this paper is to summarize, compare, and reconsider the results from previous experiments, to provide new data and insights to prevent home losses from firebrands in WUI fires. Comparison of different combustible materials around homes revealed that wood decking assemblies may be ignited within similar time to mulch under certain conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Building Wildfire Disaster Resilience and Climate Change Adaptation)
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