Protected areas, drought, and grazing regimes influence fire occurrence in a fire-prone Mediterranean region

Extreme fire seasons in the Mediterranean basin have received international attention due to the damage caused to people, livelihoods, and vulnerable ecosystems. There is a body of literature linking increasingly intense, large fires to a build-up of fuel from rural land abandonment exacerbated by climate change. However, a better understanding of the complex factors driving fires in fire-prone landscapes is needed. We use a global database based on the MODIS Fire CCI51 product, and the Greater Côa Valley, a 340,000-ha area in Portugal, as a case study, to investigate the environmental drivers of fire and potential tools for managing fires in a landscape that has undergone changing agricultural and grazing management. Extreme fire seasons in the Mediterranean basin have received international attention due to the damage caused to people, livelihoods, and vulnerable ecosystems. There is a body of literature linking increasingly intense, large fires to a build-up of fuel from rural land abandonment exacerbated by climate change. However, a better understanding of the complex factors driving fires in fire-prone landscapes is needed. We use a global database based on the MODIS Fire CCI51 product, and the Greater Côa Valley, a 340,000-ha area in Portugal, as a case study, to investigate the environmental drivers of fire and potential tools for managing fires in a landscape that has undergone changing agricultural and grazing management. Future climatic changes that increase drought conditions will likely elevate the risk of large fires in the Mediterranean basin, and abandoned farmland undergoing natural succession towards scrubland will be at particularly high risk. Our results indicate that livestock grazing does not provide a simple solution to reducing fire risk, but that a more holistic management approach addressing social causes and nature-based solutions could be effective in reducing fire occurrence.