Post-fire restoration and recovery promoting resilience
Looking for solutions to emphasise resilience in restoration and recovery through evidence-based, locally oriented, integrated planning and assessment.
Problem
Current post-fire restoration and recovery efforts lack smart and holistic approaches, impeding fire-affected landscapes’ efficient and resilient rehabilitation. Inadequate coordination, limited data integration, and resource constraints hinder prioritising and implementing effective restoration strategies, resulting in prolonged ecosystem recovery, increased susceptibility to future fires or related risks following on from fire events, and diminished socio-economic well-being.
Why the Problem exists?
The problem of insufficient smarter post-fire restoration and recovery arises due to several factors. Firstly, the complexity and scale of fire-affected areas make it challenging to assess ecological damages, prioritise restoration activities, and allocate resources effectively. Inconsistent data collection, fragmentation among stakeholders, and limited sharing of knowledge and best practices further exacerbate the problem, hindering the adoption of evidence-based approaches. Moreover, resource constraints, including funding limitations and limited capacity within restoration organisations, impede the implementation of comprehensive and long-term restoration strategies.
Looking for solutions that completely or partially solve the following:
- Integrated assessment and planning frameworks that consider ecological, social, and economic factors to guide post-fire restoration efforts.
- Consider ecological resilience, socio-economic impacts, and climate projections to facilitate informed decision-making during post-fire restoration and recovery processes.
- Facilitate participatory processes that incorporate local knowledge, values, and aspirations to ensure restoration activities align with community needs and promote social resilience.
- Develop Strategies for effective stakeholder engagement, capacity building, and knowledge transfer to empower local communities, land managers, and restoration practitioners.
- Assessing restoration effectiveness, tracking ecosystem recovery, and incorporating feedback loops to refine strategies and adjust management practices based on real-time observations.
Requirements
- Scalable to accommodate various fire-affected landscapes, scales and complexity of fire events.
- New business model to achieve sustainable funding mechanisms to support post-fire restoration and recovery activities.
Limitation(s)
- Constraints due to data availability, quality, and consistency.
- Human resources and capacity building.
- Financial limitations.
Fire Management Phase(s)
Adaptation & Restoration
Living Labs
Catalonia-Spain Living Lab; Galicia-Spain Living Lab; Greece Living Lab; Sardinia-Italy Living Lab.
Voice of the Living Lab(s)
“A decision support tool focused on improving landscape resilience to wildfires in economic, social and environmental terms that includes action protocols and priority areas for management/recovery of land use after a wildfire. It should include information about the territory (cartography, existing economic activity, climatology, settlements etc.) to determine priority areas and possible land use changes to create a territory ready for an improved response capacity in case of new wildfires“.
“The challenge aims to address the issue of land abandonment after wildfires, especially after Extreme Wildfire Events. There are not detailed tools of knowledge to understand land use resources losses, also in order to better management after fire events, concerning restoration of natural vegetation, to support wild fauna also towarding adaptation goals towarding new Extreme Wildfire Events (resilience at 2030)“.
“There is no evidence of a runoff and flood forecasting system in Galicia and Spain for areas where forest fires have occurred, which would prevent possible damage to the inhabitants of these areas“.
“THERE IS A GREAT NEED FOR:
– anti-erosion and anti-flooding projects in burned coniferous rather than broadleaf forest mapping of burned areas and effective declaration of reforested/ replanted areas
– addressing socioeconomic impacts on citizens and the community (e.g. N. Evvoia mega-wildfire of 2021)
– monitoring, preservation and cultivation of post-fire restoration measures
– areas, especially in the wildland-urban intermix and interface (WUI)
– clarification of the Technical Services’ role in the Regions and the Municipalities on adaptation and rehabilitation issues
– upgrade of the Forest Service with sufficient personnel for the restoration and protection of burned areas
– indicators, actions and measures for fire ecology and management, water economy, erosion, flooding, agricultural issues, spatial development planning and local sustainable development,
– studying the impacts of fires on non-market values and animals, agricultural lands and the urban environment“.