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Fire Risk Incidence Over the Last 200 Years: Case Study in the Mediterranean Croatia

Humans have controlled the fire within the subsistence economy and manipulated the landscape in the Mediterranean for millennia. The research has pointed out to the strong correlation between the anthropogenic impact, landscape change and rising fire risk incidence since the 19th century in the Mediterranean Croatia. The research has been conducted on the southern slopes of the Svilaja Mountain, situated in the interior part of Mediterranean central Dalmatia, Croatia. The research was based on a number of various data covering the period of 200 years. Data encompass the original cadastral plans from 1830 to 1846, forest vegetation maps (1975), satellite imagery data (since 2004) and fieldwork data. Fire risk assessment for each of all these periods was estimated according to the methodology provided by the Fire risk assessment measures within the official Regulation on the Forest Fire Protection issued by the Ministry of the Internal Affairs of Croatia (2003). Methodology is based on a number of parameters such as land cover, climate, orography, vegetation type and forest arrangement, as well as anthropogenic factors. The analysis of the landscape vulnerability to fire has shown that the most vulnerable and endangered landscape types are degraded and coniferous forest and pastures. Taking into account the overall landscape change over 200 hundred years and the prevalence of degraded forest clearly points to the importance of the human impact on landscape change by means of degradation and extensification and also inevitably points to the increase of the fire risk incidence.

Croatia, fire risk incidence, GIS, landscape change, Mediterranean

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