Producción CyT

The Importance of Economics in Fire Management Programmes Analysis

Capítulo de Libro

Autoría:

Mavsar, Robert ; González Cabán, Armando ; Farreras, Verónica

Fecha:

2010

Editorial y Lugar de Edición:

European Forest Institute

Libro:

Towards Integrated Fire Management-Outcomes of the European Project Fire Paradox (pp. 93-103)
European Forest Institute

ISBN:

978-952-5453-48-5

Resumen *

Wildfires are a societal problem that threatens many ecosystems, affects millions of people worldwide, and causes major ecosystem and economic impacts at local regional, national and global scales. Wildfires affect the forests and other wooded land, and neighbouring systems such as urban areas, infrastructure networks (i.e. power-lines and transportation corridors), agriculture lands, and the civil society. These impacts can be reflected in many ways – for example, loss of human life or health, decreased well-being of the population (local and wider), and temporary or permanent loss of employment possibilities and economic activities. The growing importance of wildfire issues at EU level is also reflected in the increasing number of research projects funded to better understand and address this problem (e.g. Eufirelab, Fire Paradox). In Europe, this change was galvanized by the large-scale wildfires and their consequences in the Mediterranean region during the 2000s. These major wildfire events clearly showed that they are not only an environmental problem, but have also a significant social dimension, affecting millions of people, having major economic impacts, and causing significant human casualties. These events increase the public interest and concern about the wildfires and prompted the development and implementation of improved policies and management measures at different levels. The main objective of these improved policies and management measures is to minimize the negative environmental, economic and social impacts of wildfires (EU 2005). However, the implementation of such measures requires substantial investment of financial, human and organizational resources, which must be justifiable and efficient. Decision support systems based on economic models can help to decide what would be the optimal use of the resources. For example, economic models can help to estimate whether investments in wildfire related measures (e.g. prevention, suppression, fuel management) are financially justified, or to choose the most efficient amongst several alternatives (i.e. the combination of investments in fire prevention, fire fighting and amount of wildfire acceptable). For the implementation of these decision support systems reliable knowledge and data are needed on the physical and economic impacts (negative and positive) of wildfires and the economic efficiency of fire management measures. The understanding and assessment of socio-economic impacts of wildfires should be considered an essential part of the fire risk assessment, development of wildfire related policies, as well as planning and implementation of management practices (Morton et al. 2003). This chapter will first introduce the basic model used for the estimation of the economic efficiency of fire management programmes and revise some of the problems related with its application. In the subsequent section we discuss why the social preferences should be considered when planning fire management programmes and present a study dealing with this topic that was conducted in Spain. In section three of this chapter, we look in detail at the problems and a possible solution for the adequate estimation of costs related to wildfires. The last part of the chapter presents the main conclusions. Información suministrada por el agente en SIGEVA

Palabras Clave

FIRE MANAGEMENT PROGRAMMES ANALYSISECONOMIC MODELSDECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMSMEDITERRANEAN REGION