Post-Fire Management and Restoration of Southern European Forests

The 45000 annual forest fires in Europe lay waste to 0.5m hectares of forests and other rural lands. This book addresses the vital issue of post-fire management of burned areas, a subject beset by serious environmental, economic and social issues.

In spite of all the efforts made in fire prevention and suppression, every year about 45 000 forest fires occur in Europe, burning ca. 0.5 million hectares of forests and other rural lands. The management of these burned forests has been given much less attention than fire prevention or fire suppression issues, but the post-fire management of burned areas raises strong concerns (economic and social impacts, soil erosion and water quality, biodiversity loss, forest restoration). Although there are a few publications which address post-fire management, the focus of these has been either on general approaches to restoration or specific topics such as preventing post-fire soil erosion. This book is about the post-fire management of fire-prone forest types in southern Europe. It provides the first comprehensive overview of the topic, ranging from stand-level to landscape-level management, and from emergency actions to long-term restoration approaches.

The first publication to access in a comprehensive way the post-fire management in fire-prone European forest types The main questions and recommended approaches can also be useful for other regions of the world with Mediterranean-type climates, such as parts of Australia, South Africa, North and South America Designed to disseminate scientific knowledge on post-fire management and restoration of forests towards a target audience of professionals (forest managers, landscape planners, and forest agency staff), graduate students and researchers

Inhalt

1. Setting the Scene for Post-Fire Management.- 2. Land Cover Change and Fire Regime in the European Mediterranean Region.- 3. Economic, Legal and Social Aspects of Post-Fire Management.- 4. Fire Hazard and Flammability of European Forest Types.- 5. Fire Ecology and Post-Fire Restoration Approaches in Southern European Forest Types.- 6. Post-Fire Management of Serotinous Pine Forests.- 7. Post-Fire Management of Non Serotinous Pine Forests.- 8. Post-Fire Management of Mediterranean Broadleaved Forests.- 9. Post-Fire Management of Cork Oak Forests.- 10. Post Fire Management of Exotic Forests.- 11. Management of Threatened, High Conservation Value Forest Hotspots Under Changing Fire Regimes.- 12. Post-Fire Management of Shrublands.- Index.