Jucker Riva, M.; Liniger, H.; Valdecantos, A.; Schwilch, G. Impacts of Land Management on the Resilience of Mediterranean Dry Forests to Fire. Sustainability2016, 8, 981.
Jucker Riva, M.; Liniger, H.; Valdecantos, A.; Schwilch, G. Impacts of Land Management on the Resilience of Mediterranean Dry Forests to Fire. Sustainability 2016, 8, 981.
Jucker Riva, M.; Liniger, H.; Valdecantos, A.; Schwilch, G. Impacts of Land Management on the Resilience of Mediterranean Dry Forests to Fire. Sustainability2016, 8, 981.
Jucker Riva, M.; Liniger, H.; Valdecantos, A.; Schwilch, G. Impacts of Land Management on the Resilience of Mediterranean Dry Forests to Fire. Sustainability 2016, 8, 981.
Abstract
Wildfires have always been a part of the history of Mediterranean forests. However, forest regeneration after a wildfire is not certain. It depends on many factors, some of which may be influenced by land management activities. Failure of regeneration will cause a regime shift in the ecosystem, reducing the provision of ecosystem services and ultimately leading to desertification. How can we increase Mediterranean forests’ resilience to fire? To answer this question, we did a literature review, investigating chains of processes that allow forests to regenerate (which we label “regeneration mechanisms”), and assessed the impact of selected management practices documented in the WOCAT database on the regeneration mechanisms. We identified three distinct regeneration mechanisms that enable Mediterranean forests to recover, as well as the time frame before and after a fire in which they are at work, and factors that can hinder or support resilience. The three regeneration mechanisms enabling a forest to regenerate after a fire consist of regeneration (1) from a seed bank; (2) from resprouting individuals; and (3) from unburned plants that escaped the fire. Management practices were grouped into four categories: (1) fuel breaks, (2) fuel management, (3) afforestation, and (4) mulching. We assessed how and under what conditions land management modifies the ecosystem’s resilience. The results show that land management influences resilience by interacting with resilience mechanisms before and after the fire, and not just by modifying the fire regime. Our analysis demonstrates a need for adaptive – i.e. context- and time-specific – management strategies.
Keywords
resilience, land management, wildfire, Mediterranean dry forest
Subject
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Environmental Science
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.