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Living lab in Canary Islands- Spain

CONTEXT

Canary Islands is one of the 17 Autonomous Regions in Spain, conformed by 8 main islands.

The Islands suffer from devastating and threatening forest fires mostly caused by humans. Nevertheless, as the Canary Islands are of volcanic origin, vegetation is often adapted to fire.

The Living Lab will focus first in Gran Canaria Island. This is the second largest and most populated island in Canary, spanning over 1560 km2 and divided in 21 municipalities, holding a population of around 0.9 million people.

Gran Canaria is an important touristic destination (around 5 million turists per year) and recently has suffered large forest fires, such as Valleseco in 2019. 

FIRE MANAGEMENT IN THE CANARY ISLANDS

The Canary Islands Government (GobCan) is the institution in charge of executive competencies of the Regional Autonomy of Canary Islands. Articulated through Councils and implemented in the different islands self-governing entities (Cabildos), equivalent to counties. GobCan has full competency in prevention, suppression and emergency management of forest fires through a co-ordinated regional strategy (INFOCA) working hand on hand with Cabildos and municipalities. 

Regional forces in charge of fire suppression are firefighters, forest fire fighters and local volunteers. Moreover, each municipality relies upon its local civil protection, co-ordinated with regional entities, that participate to fire suppression. In the case of large fires, the cabildo of each island takes over. Extra resources in Level 2 fires are requested to the government of Spain.

CHALLENGES

  • Presence of Wildland Urban Interfaces areas 
  • Ageing of population, loss of traditional uses and practices 
  • Characterized by small pieces of land and lack of official register makes hard to work with private land owners 
  • Real need for more personal in the islands to implement strategies

INNOVATION ACTIONS

  • IA1.5. Demonstration of innovative post-fire restoration and adaptation strategies
  • IA1.1. Piloting an adapted Forest Fire Potential Polygons methodology to improve decision making on EWE
  • IA1.4. Integrated fire management model: bases, demonstration and piloting activities
  • IA 4.5 Policy clinics for inclusive and coherent fire-smart risk governance  
  • IA 4.6 Fire-smart planning platform and conceptualization tool 

The Living Lab ni the Canary Islands will also support the following IA: 

  • IA5.1 Demonstration of an integrative umbrella systemfor estimating EWE risk and impact in real time with HR weather data
  • IA 5.2. Demonstration of real-time EWE simulation and smoke spread based on coupled fire-atmosphere approaches using of HR weather data
  • IA5.3. Advanced vegetation characterization based on Earth Observation data fusion and Artificial Intelligence over forestland ecosystems
  • IA 5.4. Piloting models for fire combustion and Pyrocumulonimbus with use of HR data
  • IA 5.5. Testing of vertical atmospheric structure models based on satellite constellation in EWE
  • IA 5.6. Prototyping HAPS (High Altitude Pseudo Satellites) contribution to Europe’s resilience against EWE
  • IA5.7. Quantifying impacts of exposure to air pollutants from wildfires
  • IA5.8. Prototyping and testing innovative tools for EW ICS training certificates
  • IA5.9. Tools for international collaboration through shared operational information for specialized stakeholders
  • IA5.10. Development of a Pan-European system to define management priorities to mitigate fire impact

PARTNERS

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Contact

David Caballero

  • Gobierno de Canarias
  • davidgobcan@gmail.com

Julio Herrero

  • Gobierno de Canarias
  • jherseg@gobiernodecanarias.org ​