Fire Hazards: Socio-economic and Regional Issues

The open access book aims to show the readers novel, relevant and reproducible power of synergistic collaborations between European research groups and stakeholders with the objective to synthesize the existing knowledge and expertise about fire management and hazard and defining a concerted research agenda that promotes an integrated approach to create fire-resilient landscapes, taking into account biological, biochemical and physical, but also socio-economic, historical, geographical, sociological, perception and policy constraints. This is an urgent societal need due to the expected further intensification and geographical spreading of wildfire regimes under Global Change. Fire has been part of the Earth's System for the last 400 million years, and humans are the sole species that controls and manages fire. We have used fire for over a million years, both, as hunter-gatherers managing the landscape with fire and as farmers using fire as a low-cost, efficient and ecological tool for clearing and maintaining the productivity of the land. Fire has been highlighted as the most influential element in the development of human societies. The increase in prolonged dry and hot periods observed in many regions of the world is exacerbating the risk of fire. The causes of increased fire risk are not only linked to climate change but are also a consequence of economic and social changes and political decisions. Over the past few decades, many countries’ rural areas have seen significant depopulation and a reduction in land management as residents moved to cities or even other countries in search of work. The resulting rural depopulation has led to revegetation of the abandoned agricultural land, which favors fire spread. The enhanced risk of fires is moving beyond the capacity of even the best-funded wildland firefighting teams and therefore calls for the development of new approaches to fire management that are key nowadays at different scales. Instead of focusing primarily on increasing firefighting capabilities, a more effective approach is needed that focuses on long-term fire prevention through vegetation management by reducing fuel load or managing fuel type and fuel continuity at a landscape level.

FIRElinks (COST Action CA18135) is developing the EU-spanning network of scientists and practitioners involved in forest fire research and land management with backgrounds such as fire dynamics, fire risk management, fire effects on vegetation, fauna, soil and water and socio-economic, historical, geographical, political perception and land management approaches. Among the different Working Groups, number 5 is aimed to connect communities from different scientific and geographic backgrounds, allowing the discussion of different experiences and the emergence of new approaches to fire research, human management, regional issues and socio-economic aspects. 

Dr. Jesús Rodrigo Comino, a graduate in Geography, currently works as an assistant professor at the University of Granada and was recently included in the World's Top 2% Scientists ranking by Stanford University. He did a thesis with an extraordinary degree award with the work: “The soils of the province of Malaga: Review according to the classification criteria of FAO-WRB (2006)”. He has a master’s in Territorial Planning and Geographic Information Systems (2013) from the University of Granada, whose final work was divided into 3 national publications and a monograph. During his predoc stage, he obtained three scholarships for doctoral studies: DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), La Caixa Foundation and FPU (Ministry of Education, Spain). During this period, he completed his doctoral thesis between the University of Trier, Germany (2 years), and Malaga (2 years) and Doctorate in Geography (2018) from the University of Malaga with a doctoral thesis consisting of 8 internationalpublications, international mention and outstanding cum laude, with an extraordinary prize: “Current geomorphological processes in sloping vineyards. A comparison between Ruwer-Mosel Valley (Trier, Germany) and Montes de Málaga (Málaga, Spain)”. Currently, he is also preparing a second doctorate in engineering in Geomatics at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. His research career consists of four complete monographs (Nova, Springer, etc.) and one edited (Elsevier), 176 indexed publications (Scopus)/>130 JCR and leading international collaborations with research teams from Iran, China, Kazakhstan, Sudan, India, Brazil, Croatia, Iraq or the USA. He was a regular reviewer in more than 140 indexed international journals (e.g., Scientific Reports, Science of the Total Environment, PlosOne, Catena, Geoderma, Agriculture, Ecosystem and Environment or Earth-science Review), a member of the jury of 2 doctoral theses and the evaluator of projects for the Ministries of Science of Chile,Peru, the USA, Serbia, Switzerland, Kazakhstan or Poland and postgraduate scholarships for DAAD. He has organized several scientific meetings and congresses (e.g., Action Cost, V Biohydrology, Fire in the Earth, etc.), sessions at international conferences (EGU, TerraEnvision, Conference of the Arabian Journal of Geosciences, etc.), oral presentations and conferences master classes (Germany, Bulgaria, Norway, etc.). He was an editor-in-chief of the indexed journal (Scopus and ESCI; Q2) Air Soil and Water Research (SAGE). In addition, he is an associate editor at Scientific Reports (Nature), Hydrological Science Journal (Taylor & Francis), Arabian Journal of Geosciences (Springer), Euro-Mediterranean Journal for Environmental Integration (Springer) and Journal of Mountain Science (Springer). He has participated as Researcher in R+D+I projects on social issues related to housing or the census or transfer and knowledge at a European level, such as the INTERREG Smart-Light HUB project (light pollution) or COST FIRElinks (fires). Currently, he is Working Group Leader 5 of this mentioned COST Action related to socio-economic and regional issues. He has been invited to give lectures on agriculture, sustainable management and erosion. He has supervised 5 final degree projects and 3 completed master's degrees. He has taught regulated and certified teaching at the Universities of Granada, Valencia, Málaga, León, Oviedo, Trier (in German) and Quito (Ecuador) on development, geomorphology, Geographic Information Systems, remote sensing and statistical techniques. He was recently awarded a Leonardo Scholarship (BBVA Foundation) and supervises one Ph.D. thesis.