Eva Marino

• PhD Forest Science
• Researcher at Spanish National Research Council, Forest Science Institute (ICIFOR-INIA)

Previous research has demonstrated that remote sensing can provide spectral information related to vegetation moisture variations essential for estimating live fuel moisture content (LFMC), but accuracy and timeliness still present challenges to using this information operationally. Consequently, many regional administrations are investing importan...

Vertical fuel structure is critical for fire hazard assessment in forest ecosystems. Forest stands with ladder fuels are more prone to crown fires because of canopy fuel continuity. However, characterization of ladder fuels is difficult in the field and few studies have developed explicit measurement procedures to account for these hazardous fuel s...

Wildfire risk is increasing in the context of global change, and the need for accurate fuel model maps in broader areas is becoming urgent to manage large wildfires. Among remote sensing technologies, Airborne Laser Scanner (ALS) is extremely useful for fuel mapping as it provides 3D information on vegetation distribution. A cost-effective methodol...

Spain is one of the Mediterranean countries most severely affected by wildfires during the last 30 years, despite enhanced fire suppression efforts. At present, forest area is increasing more in Spain than in any other European country, and also has one of the highest densities of fire ignitions. However, forest management plans have been developed...

Las comunidades de matorral de Cistus ladanifer L. (jara pringosa) son uno de los ecosistemas más característicos, abundantes y propensos a sufrir incendios del monte mediterráneo. Además, estos jarales tienen un potencial considerable para la extracción de productos derivados de gran valor en la industria farmacéutica, alimentaria y cosmética. Por...

Large-scale mapping of fuel load and fuel vertical distribution is essential for assessing fire danger, setting strategic goals and actions, and determining long-term resource needs. The Airborne LiDAR system can fulfil such goal by accurately capturing the three-dimensional arrangement of vegetation at regional and national scales. We developed a...

Estimating live fuel moisture content (LFMC) is critical for assessing vegetation flammability and predicting potential fire behaviour, thus providing relevant information for wildfire prevention and management. Previous research has demonstrated that empirical modelling based on spectral data derived from remote sensing is useful for retrieving LF...

Las comunidades de matorral de Cistus ladanifer L. (jara pringosa) son uno de los ecosistemas más característicos, abundantes y propensos a sufrir incendios del monte mediterráneo. Además, estos jarales tienen un potencial considerable para la extracción de productos derivados de gran valor en la industria farmacéutica, alimentaria y cosmética. Por...

The modification of fire regimes and their impact on vegetation recovery, soil properties, and fuel structure are current key research areas that attempt to identify the thresholds of vegetation’s susceptibility to wildfires. This study aimed to evaluate the vulnerability of Mediterranean pine forests (Pinus halepensis Mill. and Pinus pinaster Aito...

Large-scale mapping of fuel load and structure is of great importance for assessing fire danger, setting strategic goals and actions, and determining long-term resource needs. The Airborne LiDAR system (ALS) can fulfill such goal, because it accurately captures the three-dimensional arrangement of vegetation at regional and national scales. We deve...

Live fuel moisture content (LFMC) influences many fire-related aspects, including flammability, ignition, and combustion. In addition, fire spread models are highly sensitive to LFMC values. Despite its importance, LFMC estimation is still elusive due to its dependence on plant species traits, local conditions, and weather patterns. Although LFMC m...

Canopy fuel characterization is highly relevant for wildfire prevention, especially in the context of extreme events involving crown fires. Airborne laser scanning has been proven very useful to retrieve 3D forest structure at large scales, becoming freely available in many countries in the recent years which provide an opportunity to map fuel para...

Canopy fuel characterization is critical to assess fire hazard and potential severity in forest stands. Simulation tools provide useful information for fire prevention planning to reduce wildfire impacts, provided that reliable fuel maps exist at adequate spatial resolution. Free airborne LiDAR data are becoming available in many countries providin...

El seguimiento de la humedad del combustible vivo es fundamental para la prevención y extinción de incendios, ya que es un indicador de la inflamabilidad de la vegetación. Trabajos previos demuestran la utilidad de la teledetección para obtener información espectral relacionada con el estrés hídrico de la vegetación. En este trabajo se explora el p...

La caracterización de la cantidad y distribución espacial de la biomasa aérea en masas arboladas es clave para evaluar el riesgo de incendio y su severidad potencial, así como para planificar actuaciones preventivas orientadas a reducir su impacto. La tecnología LiDAR permite generar cartografía de variables descriptivas de la estructura de los com...

El desarrollo de la teledetección ha avanzado de forma exponencial en los últimos años. La plataforma Google Earth Engine pone a disposición de los usuarios gran cantidad de datos masivos de colecciones de imágenes de satélite de distintos sensores (MODIS, Landsat, Sentinel, etc) para el estudio del territorio a grandes escalas y amplias series tem...

Las cartografías de alta resolución de los combustibles forestales se han convertido en una información espacial imprescindible para la simulación de incendios, herramienta básica tanto para la gestión preventiva como para la extinción. La generación y actualización de estas cartografías a escala regional supone un importante reto para las administ...

Key message We compared (lognormal) universal kriging with the area-based approach for estimation of forest inventory variables using LiDAR data as auxiliary information and showed that universal kriging could be an accurate alternative when there is spatial autocorrelation. ContextForest inventories supported by geospatial technologies are essenti...

Three-dimensional (3D) data from airborne laser scanning (ALS) and, more recently, digital aerial photogrammetry (DAP) have been successfully used to model forest attributes. While multi-temporal, wall-to-wall ALS data is not usually available, aerial imagery is regularly acquired in many regions. Thus, the combination of ALS and DAP data provide a...

La transitabilidad de la vegetación leñosa por parte del ganado es uno de los factores que condiciona la admisibilidad de muchas superficies de bosque y matorral de cara a las ayudas de la PAC (Política Agraria Común). La metodología actual del Fondo Español de Garantía Agraria (FEGA) diseñada en base a vuelos LIDAR del Plan Nacional de Ortofotogra...

Airborne LiDAR has been proven very useful to characterize 3D forest structure, being a revolution on data gathering at large scale. Previous studies have shown different success of LiDAR for crown fuel characterization at different laser pulse densities. However, most of the studies comparing the effect of laser pulse density used simulated data f...

behaviour. Reliable and updated estimations of LFMC are needed by fire managers for operational wildfire risk assessment. However, detailed and constant monitoring of LFMC in the field is costly and time-consuming. Remote sensing technologies are an important source of geospatial data that can provide spectral information related to LFMC at differe...

Los incendios de copas suponen una importante amenaza para la sostenibilidad de las masas arboladas en muchos ecosistemas. Para poder predecir el riesgo de este tipo de incendios es necesario cuantificar parámetros que permitan caracterizar aspectos de los combustibles en relación a la carga existente en las copas y su distribución espacial. El LiD...

Fire Effects on Soil Properties brings together current research on the effects of fire on the physical, biological and chemical properties of soil. Written by over 60 international experts in the field, it includes examples from fire-prone areas across the world, dealing with ash, meso and macrofauna, smouldering fires, recurrent fires and managem...

Live fuel moisture content is a major driver of wildfire behavior, and a key component in fire danger rating systems. Due to climate change, Mediterranean countries are suffering more frequent extreme weather conditions and an extension of fire season along the year. Therefore, public administrations in Spain are investing important amounts of reso...

Se presentan resultados preliminares desarrollados en el marco del proyecto GEPRIF para la evaluación y modelización de los combustibles forestales, tanto en relación con su componente estructural (distribución espacial) como su componente dinámica (variación estacional), a partir de la integración de distintas tecnologías de información geográfica...

La Ley 30/2014, de Parques Nacionales, otorga al Estado el cometido de realizar un seguimiento general de la Red de Parques Nacionales. El Organismo Autónomo Parques Nacionales desarrolla para ello un Plan de Seguimiento y Evaluación, con iniciativas de seguimiento ecológico, sociológico y funcional, en colaboración con las comunidades autónomas y...

Los ecosistemas mediterráneos están expuestos a los incendios forestales y han evolucionado con la recurrencia de este factor ecológico natural. La actual situación socioeconómica del medio rural ha provocado un incremento en número y en intensidad (por la acumulación de combustible) de los incendios provocados por el ser humano. Este cambio puede...

La disponibilidad de una cobertura completa de datos LiDAR del Plan Nacional de Ortofotografía Aérea está generalizando su uso para aplicaciones forestales. Entre los posibles usos de esta tecnología se incluye la generación de cartografía continua de variables estructurales utilizadas como dato de entrada en programas de simulación de incendios. S...

El incendio forestal ocurrido en La Gomera en 2012 afectó a más de 3.600 ha, incluyendo 743 ha del Parque Nacional de Garajonay, catalogado como el espacio protegido más alterado de las últimas décadas. El objetivo de este estudio es evaluar el grado de afectación de la vegetación para detectar problemas ambientales y planificar su manejo, utilizan...

El objetivo de este estudio fue la obtención de cartografía de la estructura de la vegetación tras el gran incendio producido en el Parque Nacional de Garajonay (La Gomera) en 2012. Para ello se utilizó información de varios vuelos LiDAR de la zona de estudio con una densidad de pulso de 1 pulso/m2: 2011 (pre-incendio), 2012 (inmediatamente post-in...

Wildfires are one of the main environmental threats affecting forest ecosystems. Fire intensity and severity on vegetation and soil strongly depend on horizontal and vertical distribution of available biomass, and spatial modelling of surface and crown fuels is required for an adequate prediction of potential impacts on ecosystems. Identification o...

This study analyzes the regeneration of burned forest areas in Garajonay National Park (La Gomera, Canary Islands). In August 2012, a large fire burned 1,870 ha in the Garajonay National Park and surrounding areas. About 750 ha were burned in the National Park. High spatial resolution images, aerial and Pleiades satellite images, were acquired imme...

A large wildfire in La Gomera (Canary Islands, Spain) burned more than 1,800 ha of Garajonay National Park in 2012. Landsat-7 images were used to calculate four spectral indices (dNBR, RdNBR, RBR and dBAIM) and generate fire severity maps according to threshold values defining discrete severity levels. The performance of the fire severity indices w...

Se plantea una nueva metodología para la generación de cartografía de modelos de combustible forestal de alta resolución en las islas Canarias, basada en datos LiDAR y cartografía de vegetación previa y sin necesidad de datos de inventario de campo. Los resultados demuestran el potencial de la tecnología LiDAR para cuantificar y clasificar los comb...

Fuel management is one of the main challenges for wildfire prevention in the Mediterranean region, where wildfires have important environmental and socioeconomic effects. Different treatments are usually applied in fire-prone shrubland to try to modify its flammability. However, a knowledge gap on the effectiveness of fuel management techniques sti...

Fuel management is commonly used to reduce fire risk in fire-prone shrubland, but information about the real efficacy of the different techniques is scarce. In this study, we assessed in the laboratory the effects of different treatment types on fire initiation risk in a mixed heathland. The effects of two mechanical treatments and of prescribed bu...

Fuel bulk density and fuel moisture content effects on fire rate of spread were assessed in shrub fuels, comparing experimental data observed in outdoor wind tunnel burns and predictions from the physically-based model FIRETEC. Statistical models for the combined effects of bulk density and fuel moisture content were fitted to both the experimental...

• Introduction The abandonment of rural areas has led to an increase of the fire-prone European gorse (Ulex europaeus L.) communities in some regions, where prescribed burning is a technique applied to control them. Understanding flammability changes after treatments is crucial for the sustainable use of fire. • Objectives The objectives of this st...

An adapted bench-scale Mass Loss Calorimeter (MLC) device is proposed for evaluating effective heat of rapid flaming combustion of fine Mediterranean forest fuels. The MLC apparatus uses a calibrated thermopile to quantify heat release rate (HRR) as an alternative to the classical oxygen consumption measurement. A porous holder was used to simulate...

Experimental tests were carried out with an adapted bench-scale mass loss calorimeter (MLC) and also in an outdoor wind tunnel to estimate the heat release rate (HRR) of a forest fuel bed. The MLC apparatus uses a calibrated thermopile to quantify the HRR, as an alternative to the classical measurement of oxygen consumption due to combustion. Addit...

Fuel management techniques are commonly used in shrublands to reduce wildfire risk. However, more information about the ecological effects of these treatments is needed by managers and ecologists. In an effort to address this need, we performed a replicated (4 replicates per treatment) 48-ha experiment in northern California chaparral dominated by...

Mechanical treatments are traditionally used to modify the fuel complex in shrubland, but information about their actual effectiveness in reducing the risk of wildfire initiation is scarce. The effects of two mechanical fuel treatments (shrub clearing with crushing and manual removal) on flammability in a shrubland community in north-western Spain...

An adapted bench-scale Mass Loss Calorimeter (MLC) device for evaluating forest fuel flammability and combustion properties is proposed. This fire test apparatus consists of an MLC fitted with a chimney containing a thermopile. After the thermopile output has been calibrated by use of a methane burner, these data are used to quantify heat release,...

Shrubland are one of the main communities affected by wildland fires, both in forested and unforested areas. However, empirical models predicting fire behaviour in these communities are scarce. One reason explaining the lack of knowledge is the difficulty of obtaining data to develop these kinds of models. Wind tunnel experimental fires have been c...