Comparison of approaches for reporting forest fire-related biomass loss and greenhouse gas emissions in southern Europe
Maria Vincenza Chiriacò A D , Lucia Perugini A , Dora Cimini A , Enrico D’Amato B , Riccardo Valentini A , Giovanni Bovio C , Piermaria Corona A and Anna Barbati A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A University of Tuscia, Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-food and Forest systems (DIBAF), Via San Camillo de Lellis snc, I-01100 Viterbo, Italy.
B Italian National Forest Service, Ispettorato Generale, Sistemi Informativi Automatizzati e Telecomunicazioni (SIAT), Via Giosuè Carducci 5, I-00187 Rome, Italy.
C University of Turin, Department of Agronomy, Forest and Land Management, Via L. da Vinci 44, I-10095 Grugliasco, Italy.
D Corresponding author. Email: chiriaco@unitus.it
International Journal of Wildland Fire 22(6) 730-738 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF12011
Submitted: 24 January 2012 Accepted: 1 January 2013 Published: 13 May 2013
Abstract
Wildfires are the most common disturbances in Mediterranean forest ecosystems that cause significant emissions of greenhouse gases as a result of biomass burning. Despite this, there is reasonably high uncertainty regarding the actual fraction of burnt biomass and the related CO2 and non-CO2 gas emissions released during forest fires. The aim of this paper is to compare existing methodologies adopted in the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory reports of five of the most fire-affected countries of southern Europe (Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, France) with those proposed in the literature, to operationally estimate forest fire emissions, and to discuss current perspectives on reducing uncertainties in reporting activities for the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry sector under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. Five selected approaches have been experimentally applied for the estimation of burnt biomass in forest fire events that occurred in Italy in the period 2008–2010. Approaches based on nominal rates of biomass loss can lead to an overly conservative value or, conversely, to underestimation of the fraction of burnt biomass. Uncertainties can be greatly reduced by an operational method able to assess inter-annual and local variability of fire effects on fire-affected forest types.
Additional keywords: CO2 and non-CO2 gases, fire intensity, fire severity, forest type.
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