Spatializing and temporalizing socioeconomic determinants of wildfires in Galicia (Spain).

Abstract

Abstract Background: In the Spanish region of Galicia, one of the most fire-prone areas in Europe, most wildfires are directly or indirectly related to human activities, so socioeconomic conditions and population characteristics become determinant in wildfire management. Socioeconomic factors could also help explain the causes and distribution of wildfires spatially and temporally within the region. We sought to improve the temporal and spatial understanding of the causes of forest land wildfires in Galicia by analyzing the importance of socioeconomic and natural variables over the wildfire ignitions and hectares burned during 2001-2015. We established the municipality as the smallest geographical section with readily available information on socioeconomic factors and forest land wildfires.Results: We used clustering to analyze the spatial dimension and regression analysis of panel data to investigate the temporal dimension. Through the cluster analysis, we divided the region interterritorially according to its socio-economic behavior; nevertheless, our results suggest that the geographical distribution of the municipalities belonging to the four clusters has a similar pattern to that of the Galician provinces. Our regression models for each cluster indicate that several socioeconomic factors are at least correlated with and may tend to influence wildfire occurrence and burned area in Galicia. We also found discernable patterns related to our identified clusters, confirming that differences between territories exist regarding the likely influence of socioeconomic factors on the number of wildfire ignitions and hectares burned.Conclusions: Results suggest that explanatory socioeconomic variables are as crucial as meteorological variables in wildfire ignitions and burned area and that an accurate knowledge of inter-territorial socioeconomic differences could help to design wildfire prevention policies best suited to the socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental circumstances of each territory.