Climate, fuel, planning (urban planning) and social behavior: Potentials forest fire risk.

Jaime Senabre. 

Director SINIF. Psychologist and Environmental Consultant.

Reseacher Group 0n "Climate and Terrotorial Planning". University of Alicante. 

Abstract:

Paradoxically, everything indicates that the cost of suppressing forest fires is increasing and that it´s associated with greater investment and efficiency in emergency services. In general terms, three main causes can explain this upward trend: fuel accumulation (associated with the suppression of past forest fires), urban development in areas prone to fire episodes and the current trend of climate change. Although it´s hopeless, but it seems that the human being has little capacity to stop the effects of the climate on the risk of forest fire. The opposite is an anthropocentric illusion. On the other hand, it´s hard to think of a Public Administration that can allocate economic budgets for the management and control of fuel that are in tune with the rate of accumulation of these. Science fiction would be to imagine that such accumulation could be reversed. Given this scenario of initial disabilities, the focus of hope on society can be put. The humans have a preponderant role in the number of ignitions (negligent or intentional) in Spain, so it will be of great importance to try to modify the behavior of the owners, current and future, with respect to the potential risk of forest fire and, very especially, in those cases where there are human settlements in areas prone to register emergencies due to forest fire, such as urban forest interface areas (IUF). After experiencing a large forest fire, there are changes in the perception of risk and in the general attitude towards forest fires in the owners of homes in the affected area. Therefore, we infer that only from the understanding of the potential fire risk, the owners will be in the best conditions to undertake actions aimed at reducing the risk. Environmental education about forest fires can motivate homeowners to undertake prevention and self-protection actions to reduce risk and possible damage to property and people. At the society level, perhaps one of the best ways to combat the drama of forest fires is to create more fireresistant containment and defense structures, mainly in the most critical risk areas such as those of IUF. In this study, supported by numerous works carried out in the US Forest Service and in other recent investigations by the author in Spain, we carried out an analysis of some aspects that we consider essential in the risk of forest fire, due to its ability to enhance and modulate the evolution of fire.

Citation: Senabre, J. (2019). Climate, fuel, planning and social behavior: Potentials forest. In Journal of Earth and Environmental Sciences (J Earth Environ Sci) 2019, Volume 3, pp 63. DOI: 10.29011/2577-0640-C1-006

Conference Proceedingss - 2nd International Conference on Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change (November 28-29, 2019 | Rome, Italy)

Psychosocial perception of wildland fires in the province of Alicante (Spain)

Jaime Senabre Director of SINIF.

University of Alicante, Spain.

Abstract

The concern for the environment is part of the discourse of societies. The Planet is immersed in an ecological crisis in whose nucleus is the human being. The way in which humans are interacting with the natural environment is aggravating environmental deterioration, which is contributing to a breakdown of the global climate balance. The interpretation of the role that the human being occupies in the causality of disasters needs an honest exercise of analysis. Every year, thousands of hectares of forest burn around the world. The emissions of polluting gases into the atmosphere discharged by wildland fires constitute a global environmental problem that causes, directly or indirectly, human and economic losses, as well as a degradation of the air we breathe. In the Mediterranean countries, with Spain and Portugal at the head, 70% of the forest fires in Europe occur. The studies on perception of risks trying to analyze the effective and ethical relationships that a determined community establishes with the environment with which it interacts and lives. The attachment and the value of the place of residence are part of the environmental perception, a topic that is of interest to social psychology. In the present study, we try to analyze how citizens of the province of Alicante perceive the risk of wildland fire. This area of southeastern Spain has been historically punished by fire and in which, according to the surveyed population, 50% of citizens suffer the impact of forest fires every year. Some of our findings determine that the citizens' concern about wildland fires is very high, being perceived as a product of society, an aspect that invites us to reflect. Another outstanding aspect that emerges from our study is the consideration of citizens to establish greater restrictions on the use of fire as a fire prevention measure. Citation: Senabre, Jaime (2018). Psychosocial perception of wildland fires in the province of Alicante (Spain). In Journal of Environmental & Analytical Toxicology, Vol. 8, pp 53. DOI: 10.4172/2161-0525-C3-017 Journal of Environmental & Analytical Toxicology | ISSN: 2161-0525 | Volume 8 17th International Conference on Environmental Toxicology and Ecological Risk Assessment. Chicago, USA.

Forest fires and soil loss: A threat to biodiversity.

Jaime Senabre.
University of Alicante, Spain.
Director of SINIF.

Abstract:

Society doesn’t seem to be aware of the negative effects that forest fires have on the soil, whose degradation can become irreversible in many cases. The soil is one of the fundamental elements for life on Earth and that isn’t given due attention. In the same way, in the studies on forest fires the action of the natural risks in territories affected by forest fires and the influence of these in the loss of soil are little taken into account. A determining factor of plant productivity is the quality of the soil, a limited resource that is easily destroyed, not only by the incidence of fires, but by the climatic and meteorological conditions to which the area affected by fire can be subjected: Torrential rains, floods, droughts, extreme temperatures, strong winds that can accentuate the loss of nutrients and erosion. According to data obtained from a survey on the perception of risk by natural phenomena carried out with the Spanish population (n=1223), 67.54% of the respondents think that they live in an area threatened by some natural phenomenon and 73.02% indicate that at some moment in his life, some natural disaster has occurred that has damaged the community in which he lives. In this line, another study conducted by our research group provides us with relevant data on the frequency perception of forest fires in Spain (n=1068), where 58.52% of the population declare to suffer the impact of forest fires each year, 5.34% every 10 years or more and 3.46% never. Given these findings on risk perception and based on actual incidence data, it is possible to prepare, not only forest fire risk maps, but also risk maps of natural hazards to relate them, in order to establish the potential risk of loss of soil and the possible threat to biodiversity, based, mainly, on the observed changes in fire and natural disaster regimes.

Citation: Jaime Senabre (2018). Forest fires and soil loss: A threat to biodiversity. In Journal of Ecosystem & Ecography. Volume 8 (pp 43). DOI: 10.4172/2157-7625-C4-041 

Journal Link: 

https://www.omicsonline.org/ArchiveJEE/biodiversity-congress-2018-proceedings-tracks.php 

7^th International Conference on Biodiversity Conservation and Ecosystem Management

 July 26-27, 2018 Melbourne, Australia

Social perception of natural hazards in the province of Alicante, Spain: A comparative analysis.

Jaime Senabre. University of Alicante, Spain Abstract  Natural risks are natural processes that can have their function in nature, but when they manifest they have a direct impact on societies and on the environment. Historically, the human being has been subjected to the threat of natural phenomena, such as floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, forest fires, etc. The exposure to risk is always associated with the territory or geographical area inhabited. The risks, far from being reduced, increase in a world of increasing population and colonization of the territory. From environmental psychology, natural hazards are interpreted as stressful experiences that the individual or community must face, looking for the most appropriate strategies for each situation. We propose a comparative analysis between two different samples of the population of the province of Alicante (Spain). The data has been obtained by adapting the same measurement instrument and following a similar procedure, but taken in two different time periods, 2012 (Ramos R, Olcina J Y, Molina S 2014) Y 2017 (Senabre J). The results indicated that the threat perception of natural hazards has increased and that society perceives in a more pessimistic way the evolution of the impact of natural phenomena. The main perceived threats (forest fires, drought, desertification, extreme temperatures and floods) are maintained in both studies, although there have been significant changes in the level of importance that society gives each one of them. The risk of drought is the only threat that doesn’t offer qualitative changes in perception, occupying the second place in both cases, although there are differences at a quantitative level. Likewise, the data indicate that, in recent years, the society has received more information about of this type of risk. The studies on risk perception are a good tool for improving risk management and for the development of environmental policies appropriate to each specific territory.
2nd International Conference on Natural Hazards and Disaster Management  Scientific Abstracts: J Earth Sci Clim Change   DOI: 10.4172/2157-7617-C2-042
Citation: Senabre, J. (2018). Social perception of natural hazards in the province of Alicante, Spain: A comparative analysis. In J Earth Sci Clim Change 2018, Volume 9, pp20. DOI: 10.4172/2157-7617-C2-042
pdf: https://www.omicsonline.org/conference-proceedings/2157-7617-C2-042-004.pdf

The air pollution caused by wildland fires and the effects on health.

Jaime Senabre

SINIF, Spain
University of Alicante, Spain

Abstract 

Wildland fires are a source of polluting emissions into the atmosphere whose main origin is anthropogenic, as is amply demonstrated by causality studies and statistics. Air pollution by such disturbance is due to combustion of forest biomass that mainly generates CO2 and H2O, and other inorganic and organic gases, and particles. During fires, and by the action of fire, the ordinary characteristics of both the fuel and the oxidizer are modified, being able to change state and suffering different reactions at the molecular level. The composition and molecular structure of the combustion gases, the concentration or dose received and the exposure time act as modulators of the possible effects on the health of the exposed persons. The harmful substances of a forest fire penetrate the body, mainly through the respiratory tract and the skin. According to recent research, in Spain it is estimated that there are about 17% of the population living less than 5 km from a source that emits carcinogenic substances. There are areas of the country which has been detected excess mortality from leukemia and certain cancers, such as those related to the digestive, respiratory, prostate, breast, ovarian and gallbladder. These findings have been related to cities or municipalities with high industrial activity. There seems to be little doubt about the association of the effects of industrial pollution and the development of certain types of cancer. In our study, we evaluated the relationship between the areas of Spain with the most industrial pollution and the areas with the highest prevalence of wildland fires, in order to determine if forest fires may be contributing: First, to an impoverishment of the quality of the air we breathe; second, an increase in vulnerability and a greater risk to the health of people.

citation: Senabre, J. (2018).  The air pollution caused by wildland fires and the effects on health. In Journal of Environmental & Analytical Toxicology, 2018, Volume 8, pp22. DOI: 10.4172/2161-0525-C1-011 

Link pdf:  https://www.omicsonline.org/conference-proceedings/2161-0525-C1-011-006.pdf

Link book: https://www.omicsonline.org/conference-proceedings/environment-health-congress-2018-tracks.digital/files/assets/basic-html/page-1.html#

Link Journal of Environmental & Analytical Toxicology (ISSN: 2161-0525) https://www.omicsonline.org/proceedings/the-air-pollution-caused-by-wildland-fires-and-the-effects-on-health-89952.html

Wildland fires, climate change and landscape perception in a region of eastern Spain.

3rd GoGreen Summit
23rd-24th, March 2018. Manila, Philippines
"Wildland fires, climate change and landscape perception in a region of eastern Spain"
Jaime Senabre
Researcher of the Group on Climate and Territorial Planning. University of Alicante (Spain).
Director of SINIF.
ISBN: 978-81-932966-1-5

Abstract
Wildland fires are a landscape modeling agent that is closely linked to climatic variations and the structure of vegetation. Although it depends on the species and zones, a burned forest can take in recovering between 50 and 100 years.
Modern societies have undergone recent socio-economic changes with implications for the landscape and the natural or sustainable fire regime. Some regions of southern Europe are particularly hit by recurrent episodes of fires. In Mediterranean areas forest fires reach a larger size and occur under extreme conditions. The Valencian Community is framed within a context of Mediterranean climate favorable to the spread of fire, where it is common for a few fires to affect a high percentage of the areaburned during the year and where human activities have conditioned and modified their capacity of recovery, mainly, due to recurrence.
In Spain, the Great Wildland Fires are those that leave the most trace in an increasingly ambushed landscape. Although they account for 0.18% of total claims, they account for 44% of the area burned each year. In the Valencian Community, this figure rises to 85%.
A forest fire is a disturbing phenomenon that can have a great territorial impact and suppose a dramatic change in the landscape. The visual fragility of the landscape is related to the capacity of visual absorption or ability of the landscape to accommodate modifications that produce variations in its visual character. At the time of determining the spread of fire, the structural configuration of the landscape plays an important role, for this reason in the analysis of risk and vulnerability it´s necessary to take into account the evolution of the characteristic elements of each landscape to managethe risk of an integral way.
In Mediterranean ecosystems, high population density increases ignitions and frequency of fires. The high temperatures, the drought and the west winds are the worst enemy of the forests, especially in the central and southeastern Mediterranean, scope of this study, in which, from a psychosocial approach, we will know some aspects about the way of perceiving the landscape in a region of eastern Spain.
In summary: The future fire regime depends not only on climate, but there are other factors that can be more relevant when modeling fires and landscapes, and, without a doubt, the human being is targeted as the main fire regime modifier throughout the planet.

Forest fires from the perspective of environmental psychology (Senabre, J.)

Forest fires from the perspective of

environmental psychology.

Jaime Senabre. Psicólogo.

Citation: Jaime Senabre. Forest fires from the perspective of environmental psychology. Climate Change, 2018, 4(13), 58-68

Link to the Journal:

http://www.discoveryjournals.org/climate_change/current_issue/v4/n13/index.htm  

Link to the full article:

http://www.discoveryjournals.org/climate_change/current_issue/v4/n13/A5.pdf

 

 

Abstract.

Forest fires are a global environmental problem influenced by numerous causal factors. They must be conceived as a latent risk in current societies that can compromise the economic and social development of future generations, especially in rural areas. In Spain, thousands of hectaresof forest and agricultural land are destroyed annually. The Valencian Community is one of the regions of the country most affected by this type of disturbance, reaching, sometimes, disastrous consequences.  

One of the reasons why an individual, a community and a society do not act in a preventive manner in the face of the likelihood of a risk is because of the perception of the probability of occurrence of that risk and the proximity of its consequences. Although it may happen that you do not have the necessary resources to prevent or minimize it. Add a determining factor, the will.

Aware that the same risk can have different interpretations and meanings, a study is proposed, with a general population, that deepens the analysis of the perception of risk on the reality of forest fires, the willingness to act against them and the predictive factors of both variables.

Keywords: Forest fire, prevention, risk perception, environmental, climate change