Will fire-smart landscape management effectively buffer the effects of future climate changes and long-term land abandonment on fire regimes?

Abstract

Abstract Context: Long-term farmland abandonment is increasing fuel hazard in many mountainous landscapes of the Mediterranean Basin. Combined with ongoing climate change, fire activity and fire regimes may change in the future, thus challenging the management of these regions. Objectives: To assess the effects of fire-smart management strategies on landscape dynamics, fire regulation capacity (FRC) and fire regime under long-term land abandonment and climate change scenarios. Methods: We applied the LANDIS-II model to simulate fire-landscape dynamics under climate change (RCP 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios) and long-term farmland abandonment (2020-2050) according to three fire-smart management strategies focused on fire prevention (compared with a business-as-usual (BAU) strategy based on fire suppression) in a fire-prone Mediterranean mountainous landscape of Portugal. Results: Fire and land dynamics increased fire-adapted forests and agroforestry systems and decreased dominance of shrublands and croplands, thereby fostering landscape heterogeneity and fragmentation. FRC decreased over time, particularly under RCP 8.5 and BAU. Fire-smart strategies prevented larger and intense fires compared to BAU, although less effectively under RCP 8.5. Shifts in the historical fire regime are expected in the future (increasing burned area and fire frequency), more markedly under the BAU strategy. Conclusions: Fire-smart strategies performed better than BAU in averting current fire regime intensification. Merging forest- and silvopasture-based strategies is a promising approach in taming the effects of climate and farmland abandonment on fire activity. Our work underlined the importance of decreasing landscape fuel hazard to buffer the impact of global change on fire regimes in the future management of fire-prone Mediterranean mountain landscapes.