Assessment of the recurrence interval of wildfires in mainland Portugal and the identification of affected LUC patterns
Pages 282-292 | Received 03 Oct 2017, Accepted 11 Mar 2018, Published online: 22 Apr 2018
ABSTRACT
Wildfires are responsible for major land use and land cover (LUC) changes. These events are frequent and catastrophic
in Portugal and are responsible for great damage and loss of human life. In this study, a map to assess the probability
of wildfire occurrence (PWO) in mainland Portugal was created for the period 1975-2017 (first half of 2017). The PWO
was obtained by the superimposition of all layers by adding all the burned areas for the total period. It was observed
that the occurrences and extent of the burned areas are highly variable from year to year. The PWO map was cross-referenced
with LUC geoinformation to evaluate the LUC types that were more affected by the wildfires. The results presented and
the PWO maps are important for the management and planning of forest areas and for the creation of guidelines to
implement preventive and reactive actions in case of wildfires.
KEYWORDS: Wildfires, occurrence probability, return interval, LUC patterns, mainland Portugal
