In the Scientific Reports journal, a newly published research that tackles about the climate change might take increases in fire risks across Mediterranean Europe in the coming decades. The risk of the forest to fire will increase but the effects of the climate change on the areas that are prone to burn are not always clear.

According to EURACTIV, the University of Barcelona analyzed a number of related summer Burn Areas and the climate indicators that are connected to them. The study's conclusions indicate that there is an analytically significant relationship between the fire and summer that dries up the most regions, while the climate conditions play a minor role, except in a various of specific ecoregions.

The European Forest Fire Information System provides an extensive, high-quality database that allows the researchers to analyze the burned regions in summer across in Mediterranean Europe. It predicts that the upcoming decades, especially in northern Mediterranean regions, will dominate by the direct effects of the climate change and it is expected to be more dominant.

Science Daily reported that managing the fire at the current level might not be enough to balance the increasing droughts in the future. In the study, it also warns that the fire prevention could be overwhelmed by the effects if the climate changes are not made. Areas in Mediterranean that have been exposed to a fire for recent years have actually gone down.

It is crucial to identify the key actions to connect between drought and forest fires in adapting the strategies. That is why the researcher's study has called the current management strategies to take back the drawing board.

One of the researchers explained that the drought-fire models that developed the study can help to create a seasonal climate system that enables a more effective and dynamic adaptation. It also offers an underexploited opportunity to lessen the impact of the fire that adverse the climate conditions.

Related