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Quantitative Assessment of the Relationship between Land Use/Land Cover Changes and Wildfires in Southern Europe
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Wildfires are key drivers of land use/land cover (LULC) dynamics by burning vegetation
and affecting human infrastructure. On the contrary, LULC changes (LULCCs) may affect the
fire regime by influencing vegetation type, burnable areas, fuel loads and continuity. This study
investigates the relationship between LULCC and wildfires. We developed a methodology based on
different indicators, which allowed us to quantitatively assess and better understand the transitions
between LULC classes and burnt area (BA) in Europe in the last two decades (2000–2019). The
assessment was performed for the entire European continent and, independently, for each of the
five European countries most affected by wildfires: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece. The
main results are the following: (i) LULCC analysis revealed a net loss in forests and arable land and a
net gain in shrubs; (ii) most of the BA occurred in forests (42% for the whole of Europe), especially
in coniferous forests; (iii) transitions from BA generally were to transitional woodland/shrub or,
again, to BA. Overall, our results confirm the existence of a strong relationship between wildfires
and LULCCs in Europe, which was quantified in the present study. These findings are of paramount
importance in fire and environmental system management and ecology.
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Citation: Parente, J.; Tonini, M.; Stamou, Z.; Koutsias, N.; Pereira, M. Quantitative Assessment of the Relationship between Land Use/Land Cover Changes and Wildfires in Southern Europe. Fire 2023, 6, 198. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/fire6050198
Editora
MDPI