Author(s): Botequim, Brigite Roxo
Date: 2015
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/9257
Origin: Repositório da UTL
Project/scholarship: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/PIDDAC/SFRH%2FBD%2F44830%2F2008/PT; info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/3599-PPCDT/PTDC%2FAGR-CFL%2F64146%2F2006/PT;
Subject(s): annual fire risk; post fire mortality/damage; crown fire occurence; fire-resistant forests; preventive silviculture
Doutoramento em Engenharia Florestal e dos Recursos Naturais - Instituto Superior de Agronomia
Forests are a key element in the Portuguese landscape. Moreover, fire hazard is a central challenge at national context. How can appropriate management potentially change fire behaviour, fire damage and the difficulty of fire suppression? What are the causal relationships between fire proneness, stand structure and forest stand composition? The common objective of the doctoral research among the five studies is to address the above issues based on principles of creating fire-resistant forests, underlying factors and implications for active forest management, while sustaining effective fire prevention levels. The ultimate goal is to provide forest managers and policy makers with tools to support their decisions, and more effectively align management policies, plans, and practices across fire-prone landscapes. The first research phase aims, across a range of scales from the individual tree to the stand level, respectively: (i) modelling the annual probability of wildfire occurrence of pure and even-aged eucalypt stands; (ii) developing a shrub biomass accumulation model, and (iii) a post-fire mortality model at stand level and the individual tree survival probability to mitigate damage in any forest stand structure. The second phase introduces fire behavior modeling coupled with common stand variables as a tool to (iv) assess potential crown fire occurrence through stand structure/stand composition, and (v) draw guidelines that express the difficulty of fire suppression in those fire-prone forest stands. The accuracy of the research findings can provide an interesting insight to support hazard-reduction silvicultural practices in Portuguese ecosystems
