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A Multivariate Approach for Mapping Fire Ignition Risk: The Example of the National Park of Cilento (Southern Italy)

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Abstract

Recent advances in fire management led landscape managers to adopt an integrated fire fighting strategy in which fire suppression is supported by prevention actions and by knowledge of local fire history and ecology. In this framework, an accurate evaluation of fire ignition risk and its environmental drivers constitutes a basic step toward the optimization of fire management measures. In this paper, we propose a multivariate method for identifying and spatially portraying fire ignition risk across a complex and heterogeneous landscape such as the National Park of Cilento, Vallo di Diano, and Alburni (southern Italy). The proposed approach consists first in calculating the fire selectivity of several landscape features that are usually related to fire ignition, such as land cover or topography. Next, the fire selectivity values of single landscape features are combined with multivariate segmentation tools. The resulting fire risk map may constitute a valuable tool for optimizing fire prevention strategies and for efficiently allocating fire fighting resources.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Environmental Geology and Geoengineering, CNR-IGAG, Italian National Research Council, Monterotondo, Italy

    Daniela Guglietta

  2. Department of Arboriculture, Botany and Plant Pathology, University of Naples ‘Federico II’, Portici, Italy

    Antonello Migliozzi

  3. Department of Environmental Biology, University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, Rome, Italy

    Carlo Ricotta

Authors
  1. Daniela Guglietta
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  2. Antonello Migliozzi
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  3. Carlo Ricotta
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Correspondence to Carlo Ricotta.

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Guglietta, D., Migliozzi, A. & Ricotta, C. A Multivariate Approach for Mapping Fire Ignition Risk: The Example of the National Park of Cilento (Southern Italy). Environmental Management 56, 157–164 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-015-0494-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-015-0494-0

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