FIRELAN | An Ecologically Based Planning Model Towards a Fire Resilient and Sustainable Landscape. A Case Study in Center Region of Portugal

This paper explores the role of landscape planning as a tool for rural re prevention. It presents a methodology for a re resilient and sustainable landscape model (FIRELAN) that articulates the ecological and cultural components in a suitable and multifunction land-use plan. FIRELAN is a conceptual and ecologically based model that recognizes river basin’ land morphology, microclimate, and species combustibility as the fundamental factors that determine re behavior and landscape resilience, along with the ecological network (EN) for achieving ecological sustainability of the landscape. The model is constituted by the FIRELAN Network and the Complementary Areas. This network ensures the effectiveness of discontinuities in the landscape with less combustible land-uses. It also functions as a re-retardant technique and protection of wildland-urban interface (WUI). This model is applied to municipalities from Portugal's center region, a simplied landscape severely damaged by recurrent rural res. The results show that land-use and tree species composition should change drastically, whereas about 72% of the case study needs transformation actions. This requires a signicant increase of native or archaeophytes species, agricultural areas, landscape discontinuities and the restoration of biodiversity in Natura 2000 areas. The EN components are 79% of the FIRELAN N area, whose implementation ensures soil and water conservation, biodiversity, and habitats. This paper contributes to the discussion of the Portuguese rural res planning framework, highlighting the role of this model implementation towards a new landscape by giving explicit indications of adequate land-uses in rural areas. The FIRELAN model can be replicated in any situation.


Introduction
In the last decades, the Mediterranean region has been the most affected area in Europe by rural res (San-Miguel-Ayanz et al., 2013). In 1992, the EU forest policy agenda placed forest re protection as a priority and identi ed Mediterranean countries as having high re risk landscapes (EEC, 1992). The EU Forestry Strategy of 1998 (EEC, 1998) and the EU 2006' Forest Action Plan (2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011) (EC. 2006) aimed to optimize the multifunctional role of the forest through the implementation of forest re protection plans. Besides these strategy principles were still valid, the 2013 EU Forest Strategy settled for a more coherent and proactive approach to forest policy (EC, 2013a). Also, as a goal from the 2030 Agenda for a Sustainable Development (UN, Additionally to forest general regulation at the national level, the Portuguese planning system also includes forest re protection plans at regional, municipal and local scales. However, those plans represent a complex regulatory framework without criteria and scale integration, simultaneously with negative consequences in forest governance e ciency (Tedim et al., 2019). The revision of the regional forest landscape plans (PROF) in 2019 represented an opportunity to tackle the paradigm shift towards a structural transformation in the land-use planning system, including new targets to re resilient landscapes, tree species and other sustainable land uses.
However, the revised plans still consider a policy target for 2050 with a dominant and high Pp and Eg forest cover area, representing between 60% and 90% of the total forest area (OTI, 2019).
Despite the Portuguese forest legislation, a full understanding of rural re prevention through an integrated and ecologically based planning approach is still to be addressed. This approach should include both sustainable uses of the land and well-de ned management measures. In this regard, the forest is of vital importance at the landscape scale, in which planning and management integration is fundamental for achieving a re resilient and sustainable landscape. This goal goes far beyond getting tradable goods of materials and energy. It includes other ecosystem services provided by the forest, namely water quality, soil and biodiversity conservation and climate regulation. In addition, it provides immaterial services such as human contact with nature, recreation, and leisure. Forest services' availability depends on forest planning and management, in order to avoid and prevent uncontrollable res.
This paper aims to present a methodology for an ecologically based land-use planning model, that articulates the ecological and the cultural components in a suitable and multifunction land-use plan, towards a re resilient and sustainable landscape (FIRELAN). This re prevention model is applied to the municipalities of Pedrógão Grande, Castanheira de Pêra e Figueiró dos Vinhos, in the center region of mainland Portugal, where landscape simpli cation and transformation was very signi cant and mega res often occur. Also, the FIRELAN maps will be compared with Figueiró dos Vinhos municipality's current land-use plans, namely the regional forest land-use plan (PROF-CL, 2019), the municipal land use plan (PDM), and the municipal re protection plan (PMDFCI).

Theoretical Framework
Research on rural re focus more on describing the speci c processes and components of re behaviour and regime, rather than integrating them into re prevention models. This section attempts to bring together sectoral perspectives, to develop an integrative, re resilient and sustainable, conceptual model, namely: The concept of resilience is the capacity of systems to reorganize and recover from change and disturbance without changing to other states (Walker et al., 2004;Ahern, 2011). This concept linked with the comprehension of the landscape as a system (Magalhães et al., 2007) leads to the de nition of landscape re resilience as the capacity of landscape in absorbing the disturbance caused by rural res without losing its function, structure, and identity and ultimately weakening re frequency and intensity or magnitude. The landscape re resilience is determined by several factors related to a) re behaviour; b) ammability of tree species; c) landscape discontinuities; and d) wildland-urban interface. a) Fire behaviour Page 5/40 Fire behaviour depends on climatic factors, e.g. temperature, precipitation, and wind, combined with other biophysical factors related to the river basin morphology, including slope, aspect and altitude (Rothermel, 1983;Moreira et al., 2007;Heyerdahl et al., 2010). Although changes in weather conditions can lead to unpredictable re behaviour (Coen, 2015), the biophysical factors can contribute, to some extent, to the reduction of re risk and, therefore, should be taken into account in land-use planning, namely: i. North aspect hillslopes, with a slope higher than 25%, by receiving less radiation throughout the year, burn less than the other hillslope aspects (Oliveira et al., 2014); ii. The re progression speed doubles for every 10º (about 17%) increase in slope, and it can rise continuously in steep hillslopes from bottom to ridge, by approximately 5-6 Km/h of re speed (Viegas, 1989); iii. Above slopes higher than 30º (57%), the relationship between the slope and re speed is almost exponential (Viegas, 2006); iv. When the re reaches the top of the river basin if it does not progress to the opposite side due to the hillside breeze, it begins to plow along the contour lines losing speed.

b) Flammability of tree species
The post-re observation shows that tree species do not burn equally. Speci cally, native species burn less than Eg and Pp, and regenerate better even in severe re circumstances. ii. According to Povak et al. (2018) the streams and valley bottoms play a fundamental role in establishing landscape discontinuities. From a river basin perspective, these two landscape components are more crucial to reduce the size and intensity of the re than ridges or hilltops.
iii. Furthermore, Heyerdahl et al. (2010) points to the necessity of introducing re retardant strips along the  contour lines when the hillside is too long to avoid top-down and down-up re; iv. Swales or in ltration ditches, constructed along the contour lines with a berm downslope planted with native broadleaf trees and associated ponds (Mollison, 1988) can function as linear re-belts. These structures also reduce soil loss by erosion and increase the water basin's total water ow through in ltration.
v. The mulching technique is a way to increase soil and water conservation, and reduce post-re This technique helps to increase water in ltration and retention in the soil, leading to lower species combustibility, along with a reduction in soil erosion (Fernández et Termorshuizen et al., 2007). This concept is closely related to the capacity of landscape adaptability and resilience. In this study work, ecological sustainability is regarded as a landscape quality dependent on the value and conservation of the natural resources. It is synthesized in an ecological network and dependent on the most adequate land uses, set by ecological land suitability assessment.

a) Ecological Network
The Ecological Network (EN) is recognized as a system of landscape structures or ecosystems (Forman, 1995;Magalhães, 2001) that provides the necessary physical and biological conditions for maintaining or restoring ecological sustainability, connectivity, and biodiversity. Therefore, the EN components correspond to highly valuable ecosystems, which represent speci c ecological functions, directly in uenced by hydrologic availability, soil genesis processes and fertility, plant biodiversity (species), habitat resources and climate (Cunha and Magalhães, 2019 In this context, the Ecological Network (EN) assumes a holistic view of land use planning and biodiversity conservation and constitutes the core of the broader Green Infrastructure (GI) framework (EC, 2013b; Civic and Jones-Walters, 2015) and a planning tool that supports the European Biodiversity Strategy 2030 (EC 2020).

b) Ecological land suitability
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, 1976) de nes land suitability as the tness of a given type of land for a determined use. The earliest application of this concept was from the American landscape architects (e.g. Tyrwhitt, 1950; Lewis, 1964) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century using hand-drawn overlays to locate territories suitable for future construction (Collins et al., 2001). The land-use suitability analysis using this overlay technique has been applied by different authors, such as McHarg (1967), which used ecological inventory as criteria to map the best land use and recently applied with geographical information systems (GIS) tools in several contexts.
Based on the same technique, the ecological land suitability analysis considers the abiotic and biotic characteristics thresholds for each land use. This analysis allows more careful land-use planning under the resilience of the landscape to support it. By applying this analysis at the national level, Magalhães et al. (2016) concluded that 22% of the Portuguese territory is suitable for agriculture. Still almost half of it is covered with other land uses. Moreover, about one-third of the Portugal area is ideal for conservation forest but is occupied by exotic species. This analysis also identi es the potential for expanding different species, such as cork oak, holm oak, carob, and chestnut.
The proposed model considers land-use planning as a tool that integrates the above perspectives of landscape re resilience and ecological sustainability, into a spatial framework.

Case Study
The study area is located in the Central Region of mainland Portugal (Fig. 1A). It includes three contiguous municipalities (Fig. 1B) (Fig. 2B) indicates that "forest conservation" class, de ned as areas where native species must be planted, and fast-growing species afforestation are prohibited, should cover more than 50% of the municipal area. However, the land use and land cover map (DGT, 2020) shows that in 2018 native species area corresponds only to 5.5% of the municipality.
The re protection Municipal plan (PMDFCI, 2018) is a legal response, at a local scale, to the National re forest protection system. This plan proposes the implementation of: (i) Networks of fuel management (primary and secondary), (ii) Mosaics plots of fuel management, in particular, settlements protection buffer (100 m), forest road buffer with a width not less than 10 m, transmission lines and distribution of electricity protection buffer Besides these re protection measures, namely fuel management lines and buffer areas, the PDMFCI does not include any recommendation or spatial proposal relative to re-adapted species or resilient land uses, or even forest discontinuity and associated landscape diversi cation. This re protection plan indicates that this competence is part of land use plans (PDM, 2015).

Method
The proposed methodology provides an integrated land-use planning model that gathers, in a spatial framework, the ecological and the cultural components responsible for improving re resilience and ecological sustainability, designated by FIRELAN model. This methodology consists of three phases: 1) the FIRELAN conceptual model, 2) the FIRELAN GIS model -mapping criteria development within a GIS software, and 3) the FIRELAN model application to a land-use proposal.

FIRELAN conceptual model
The conceptual model is based on the landscape-system concept (Magalhães, 2001;Magalhães et al., 2007), which de nes landscape as a spatial and multifunctional system, constituted by two main subsystems: the network and complementary areas. The network brings together essential areas, or resources, fundamental to achieve speci c landscape planning targets. The complementary areas are the interstices that result from the network and support more exible land-uses than the network. , which classi es landscape components according to their position into the wet and dry systems in a river basin. This supports the understanding of the ecological functions of the different areas in a river basin, including the re behaviour, and provides a spatial tool for sustainable planning. The conceptual model, spatialized based on the river basin ( Fig. 3A) de nes a fundamental network of re-resilient land uses according to the ecological land suitability, providing a multifunctional landscape, and also restoring the concept of familiar agriculture near the settlements.
Moreover, a schematic representation of the FIRELAN N ( Fig. 3B) comprises the wet system constituted by permanent and temporary streams, water bodies, valley bottoms and, in the dry system, ridges with associated hilltops and headwaters. These features comprise the principal linear network that prevents the progression of re perpendicularly to the hillslope. This network is complemented by a subsystem transversal to the primary river basin, created to contain the longitudinal re progression, along the hillslope. These secondary linear elements are developed along the secondary streams, the ridges, around settlements and along roads and power infrastructures. These two systems must be covered by re-resilient land uses, namely agriculture, pastures or broadleaved trees, to delay the re progression towards the steepest slope, and can be complemented with reretardant techniques, such as the construction of swales and associated ponds, and mulching with straw or organic waste deposited on the soil. The FIRELAN CA corresponds to the FIRELAN network's interstices (Fig. 3B), and foresees a more comprehensive range of land uses, from conservation to production or building.

FIRELAN GIS model
The FIRELAN GIS model consists of mapping the set of ecological and cultural components through a Geographic Information System (GIS), by overlaying data into two levels, the FIRELAN N and the FIRELAN CA, using spatial analysis tools. The FIRELAN methodology is a multi-criteria evaluation that integrates, in a single framework, the physical, the biological and the cultural landscape systems, according to several subsystems or resources (water, soil, climate, biodiversity, settlements, and infrastructures) and classi ed by shape in linear and areas. These subsystems were selected accordingly to the conceptual model that recognizes river basin' land morphology, and species combustibility as the fundamental factors that determine re behavior and landscape resilience. Besides, this methodology refers the potential land-use of each component. The FIRELAN components that coincide with the Ecological Network (EN) are marked in light green.
This methodology presented in Fig. 4 was implemented in GIS using Arcgis 10.5 Esri® software, and is developed as follows:

FIRELAN Network components
The FIRELAN N constitutes the primary protection against re by introducing discontinuities in linear systems and areas e cient against re progression. These discontinuities might have re-resilient land uses capable of lowering the re spread velocity or even extinguishing it. This network should be planned based on the river basin as a unit and is constituted by: 1. Ecological components i) Streams were ranked into four levels according to their watershed areas, streams length (Silva et al., 2013) and drainage area superior to 0,1 km² (Pena et al., 2018), and water bodies (INAG, 2010).
ii) Valley bottoms as a broad concept, which comprehends, not only oodplains, but also at and concave areas, contiguous to streams, in which slope is less than 5 % (Cunha et al., 2017). iii) Headwater system as the area between the ridgeline and the beginning of the streams network, whose beginning is considered with drainage area of 0.1 km² (Pena et al., 2018). iv) Ridges are based on the river basins limit using drainage dimension and streams length criteria (Silva et al., 2013). v) Hilltops are upper areas of the drainage basin, de ned as at or convex areas with slope < 5% (Cunha et al., 2018). These areas vary in width due to erosion processes. The narrower forms correspond to the ridgeline and the wider ones to large hilltops, which are commonly referred to as plateaus.
vi) Swales and ponds are re-retardant techniques built along the contour lines having a berm downslope (Mollison, 1988) with a native broadleaf trees ribbon and associated ponds. The most important swales are those that follow the key-line and the baseline. Swales do not necessarily need to be continuous, but they must not be placed on slopes greater than 25%. The swales must be associated with a mulching technique, consisting of a straw layer or organic waste deposited on soil surface (Fernández et al., 2010;Keizer et al., 2018). For this purpose, sacri cial trees can be used to cut the branches for deposition on the ground. These components were not mapped due to the required level of detail.
The soils of high ecological value  include soils with considerable soil depth and highest rates of fertility, e.g. Fluvisols, Anthrosols, Humic Cambisols (FAO and WRB classi cations) and Alluvial Soils (Portuguese classi cation) as well as soils associated with traditional agroforestry ecosystems, with speci c ecosystems e.g. marshes. This soil evaluation was performed for mainland Portugal (Leitão et al, 2013), and it is similar to the concept of soil quality (Pena et al., 2020). These areas must be allocated to agriculture, wherever possible, providing good management of the soil and of the natural resources. Also, agriculture constitutes a discontinuity of fuel material, fundamental to increase the re resilience of the landscape.
(viii) Steep slope areas are areas with slope greater than 25 % associated with high erosion levels and soil loss because of super cial or deep mass movements. The re spreads more quickly in these areas, so re-retardant land-uses must be ensured. The mapping was performed in GIS using a 25 meter Digital Terrain Model (INAG, 2010), and the slope tool for spatial analyst.
(ix) Dominant wind exposure areas are locations where the re increases its intensity and speed. These areas are located generally on the hillslope exposed to the dominant winds direction (North-Northwest, in Portugal) and, in mountainous regions particularly along the ridgeline. Thus, in those areas must be ensured wind protection edges with re-retardant species and adequate land-use. In this case study, the wind protection function is considered within the headwater systems allocated land-uses.
(x) Vegetation areas with very high and high conservation interest have high oristic richness, endangerment, naturalness, rarity, and replicability. These areas were mapped based on the predictive methodology of communities and habitats and on the potential vegetation map, which considers the communities' intrinsic value (Mesquita, 2013). Therefore, these areas must be maintained, as they constitute important genetic banks.
(xi) Natura 2000 areas include Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) created under the Habitats Directive, and the Special Protection Areas (SPAs), national parks, nature parks, nature reserves, protected landscapes, natural monuments, and protected areas with private status. In Portugal, the Natura 2000 includes 60 SACs and SPAs.
The data is available in the EEA platform and the ICNF geoportal.

Cultural Components
The FIRELAN includes also the cultural system, namely: (i) Existing agriculture areas are a crucial discontinuity of fuel material, mainly around villages, and shall be maintained, and nanced (Moreira and Pe'er, 2018) if necessary, particularly the family farming. This data is from the 2018 Portuguese Land Use and Land Cover Map, published by DGT in 2020.
(ii) Urban and rural settlements protection buffer area, where the land use must be restricted to low-fuel activities such as agriculture, grazing, native or archaeophytes broadleaved trees. Its width varies between 100 m in settlements, and up to 30 m in isolated buildings (Decree-Law n.º 10/2018). The data used was from the OpenStreetMap©, and the different buffers were mapped using the buffer tool from ArcGIS.
(iii) Road infrastructure protection buffer area, where the land use must be restricted to low-fuel activities such as agriculture, grazing, native or archaeophytes broadleaved trees, in wide lanes: 100 m on motorways, 50 m on national roads, 10 m on municipal roads and 5 m on vicinal ways. The data used was from the OpenStreetMap © and the different buffers were mapped using the buffer tool from ArcGIS.
(iv) Power and communication infrastructures protection buffer area de ned with different widths ranging from 15 to 45 meters following the Portuguese law (Implementing-Decree nº 1/92 de 18/2/1992). In these areas the land use must be restricted to low-fuel activities such as agriculture, grazing (meadows) or small native shrubs.
The different buffers were mapped using the buffer tool from ArcGIS.

FIRELAN Complementary Areas components
The FIRELAN Complementary Areas (FIRELAN CA) are the interstitial areas of the FIRELAN Network and only indirectly contribute to re resilience of the landscape. However, their ecological characterization is important for the land uses proposal, according to their ecological suitability.
i) Maximum in ltration areas have high permeability resulting from the evaluation of geology, soil, slope and land cover (Pena et al., 2016). They guarantee freshwater supplies and water availability (groundwater recharge), contributing to decreasing the runoff and erosive processes. These areas increase re resilience and increase soil and water conservation if they have suitable land use covers, namely biodiverse pastures, native bushes or native or archaeophytes broadleaved trees.
ii) Areas with high soil erosion risks depend on soil characteristics, the length of the hillslopes, and precipitation amount per time unit. Besides the steep slope areas (slope above 25 %) these areas also include hillslope under 25 %. These soil erosion risks should be prevented with the appropriate land use cover and, if needed, with techniques to promote water in ltration and erosion reduction. The soil erosion risk map was based on the potential soil erosion calculated through erodibility (K), erosivity (R), and the topographic factor (LS) of the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (Pena et al., 2020). These areas also contribute to re resilience if they have suitable land use cover.
iii) Areas with the higher solar radiation quartile present a higher risk of re occurrence (Calviño-Cancela et al., 2017). These areas have higher air and soil temperatures. The annual solar radiation is characterized by latitude and elevation, steepness (slope), aspect, and effects of shadows cast by surrounding topography (Fu and Rich, 2000). It was calculated using solar radiation tool from ArcMaps 10.7, with the mean value of 0.56 for atmospheric transmissivity for the study area. Fire-retardant species should compose the land use cover. iv) Vegetation areas with low and very low conservation value correspond to the existent vegetation whose conservation value is not high enough to receive an endangered status, such as annual grasslands and meadows with low biodiversity. The regenerative capacity presented in such areas is important to the wildlife community. Mesquita (2013) modeled the data used. v) Natural regeneration areas of native species need to be conserved because they have higher restoration success. These areas were not mapped in the case study because it would require eldwork on a scale of detail than that of this study.
vi) Edges with native vegetation to ensure biodiversity. The creation or conservation of edges, in agriculture or forest production stands, can protect from dominant winds, decrease evaporation, and avoid re progression. In terraces, edges with stonewalls will allow agriculture or pastures installation, which will introduce fuel voids in those areas. These elements were not mapped in the case study because of the detailed scale needed.
vii) Low ecological value areas support a wider range of uses. In these areas, it is possible, in the light of the concepts underlying this paper, including fast growing species.

FIRELAN potential land uses
The last phase of the FIRELAN method is to propose potential land-uses according to the ecological land suitability of each component (Fig. 4) based on the studies developed in Magalhães et al. (2016). Fire resilient land-use should be assigned to the FIRELAN Network components in order to provide landscape resilience. Relatively to the FIRELAN CA more exible uses may assume a complementarity for re resilience.
The re resilient land-uses are composed of native or archaeophytes broadleaved trees, agricultural areas, permanent meadows, water elements or void spaces, like roads or even bare areas. The choice of native species referred to in the theoretical framework must be selected according to potential natural vegetation (Mesquita and Capelo, 2016), depending on the function that a specie or mixture of species can ensure in the ecosystem. For example, Molkanov (1971) states that, due to the nature of the produced dead layer, the most suitable cover for water retention and in ltration, is a mixture of broadleaved trees and Cupressaceae (mixed woods). As for agricultural land use, the current agricultural areas must be maintained and encouraged in areas with higher fertility. In the areas where it is advisable by law, to keep the land clear of vegetation, such as powerinfrastructure buffer areas, the land-use should at least be a meadow to prevent soil erosion.
In complementary areas, the uses are more exible, but also have to be de ned depending on the land suitability. Pinus pinaster and Eucalyptus sp. are assigned to the complementary areas with low ecological value.

Results
The FIRELAN model was applied to an intermunicipal case study, which comprises three municipalities from the center region of Portugal: Pedrógão Grande, Castanheira de Pêra, and Figueiró dos Vinhos (Fig. 1).

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The FIRELAN map comprises the FIRELAN network and the complementary areas.
The FIRELAN network (Fig. 5) comprises 79% of the case study total area, mainly dominated by rugged mountainous relief. The FIRELAN network components with the highest representativeness in the case study area are the steep slope areas (41.3%), the headwater systems (28.4%), and the Natura 2000 Network (14.8%). The linear features from FIRELAN network are 46% of the study area (Table 1), in which 32% are ridges-related features such as headwaters, hilltops, and ridges, and about 9% are water-related features, such as streams, valley bottoms, and water bodies. The linear features associated with the cultural system (settlements, roads, and power infrastructures protection buffer) consist of 13% of the case study area ( Table 2). The existing agriculture, which is located mainly around rural settlements, occupies only 8.5% of the study area and does not entirely surround the settlements (Table 2), so the protection buffer area proposal must envisage its ful llment. The FIRELAN CA are the remaining areas of the FIRELAN N and occupy 17% of the case study area, of which one third has low ecological value. In the total area of the components used to characterize the FIRELAN CA, a part is included in the FIRELAN N. For instance, 69 % of the study area has higher potential soil erosion. However only 8,9 % is contemplated in FIRELAN CA. The coexistence of both network and complementary areas components revealed on the FIRELAN map (Fig. 6) occurs in this particular case study.
The FIRELAN CA components with ecological value are the higher solar radiation quartile (7% of the total case study area), the higher potential soil erosion areas (8.9%), the maximum in ltration areas (0.3%), and the vegetation with moderate and low conservation interest (< 0.01%). The latest is the vegetation from the early stages of ecological succession that should be managed and conserved to evolve to the climax forest. In the areas with solar radiation from the higher quartile, which may contribute to the spread of re, the land uses should be preferably constituted by less combustible species or open spaces (agriculture/meadows). The soil erosion risks and maximum in ltration areas should have a land cover and management practices that protect the soil from erosion, aquifer contamination, and improve water in ltration.
The FIRELAN CA with low ecological value allows exible land-use planning, namely introducing of exotic species plantations with shorter exploration cycles. It represents 5.8% of the study area. However, examining each municipality individually, these areas may reach 10% of the municipality area (e.g. Pedrógão Grande municipality).
About 79 % of the FIRELAN N is coincident with the Ecological Network (EN) already delimited by the team (Magalhães et al., 2013b; Cunha and Magalhães, 2019), which validates the assumption that the FIRELAN model, besides re resilience, also considers the ecological sustainability of the landscape, ensured by the EN.

FIRELAN Land-use plan and Landscape transformation actions
Based on the FIRELAN model's components, a land-use plan with alternative uses was de ned according to the ideal landscape to provide a re resilient and sustainable landscape.
The methodology applied in the case study is presented in Fig. 8a The landscape transformation actions map is based on the comparison between the current land-use (DGT, 2020) and the FIRELAN land-use plan. The results (Table 3) show that about 24 % of the case study has a land use adequate to its ecological circumstances and should be maintained. However, the ndings indicate that 72% would bene t from transformation actions.
The Land Use and Land Cover map (DGT, 2020) shows that before the 2017 re, the case study area was densely occupied by Pinus pinaster (maritime pine) and Eucalyptus globulus (73%) (Fig. 1C). Consequently, the dominant transformation action comprises the conversion of maritime pine and eucalyptus into native, archaeophyte broadleaved forest, mixed woods, or other re resilient land-uses. This conversion also happens in Natura 2000 areas, suggesting the need to de ne an accurate transformation plan in nature conservation classi ed areas.  According to the FIRELAN model, 5.8% of the area (2146 ha) is suitable for exotic trees (Pp and Eg). However, in these areas, the analysis of transformation actions (Table 4) revealed that 5.5 % already have eucalyptus and maritime pine. Therefore this land-use can be expanded only in the remaining area, which is 0.3% (162 ha) of the case study area. Of the total area to be maintained and conserved, 46.9% is currently agriculture, 29.5% is native forest, 23% is shrubs. Analyzing the transformation actions (Fig. 9), the preceded land uses dominant for each transformation actions are eucalyptus and maritime pine forest. Only shrubs are dominant in the area to be converted to mixed woods in Natura 2000.
This map allows a more straightforward identi cation of the transformation actions, providing the basis for assessing cost evaluation. Simultaneously, mapping these transformation actions enables its translation into management actions, providing planning tools for technical assistance projects and investment development.
With these instruments, the municipalities can make more informed decisions and apply for nancing for the implementation.

Comparison between plans
The FIRELAN network (N) from Figueiró dos Vinhos was spatially compared with the Fire protection Municipal plan (PMDFCI). The comparison (Fig. 10) con rmed that only 17% of the case study area is coincident between that plan and FIRELAN N, leaving 72% of the FIRELAN N unprotected by the PMDFCI (Table 5). About 0.7 % of the case study corresponds to areas without FIRELAN network and with PMDFCI, which are residual areas of the mosaic plot of fuel management mapped by the latter whose justi cation is not clari ed.
However, the PMDFCI compared only with the FIRELAN Network's linear components, the unprotected areas fall to 36% (Table 6) because the cultural system's linear components coincide entirely with the PMDFCI. If there is a need to establish implementation priorities, only the linear elements, including the headwater systems, the hilltops, and the streams, can be considered in a rst phase.
On the other side, Figueiró dos Vinhos municipal's land-use plan indicates a vast area of "forest conservation" class where native species must be planted, and fast-growing species afforestation is prohibited, showing a clear intention of the municipality in replacing the current eucalyptus forest. This transformation intention is consistent with the land-use proposal from the FIRELAN model ( Fig. 7b)

Discussion
This paper explores the role of landscape planning as an important tool for rural res prevention. According to FAO (2006), re prevention includes any actions that may prevent the outbreak of re or reduce re spread and severity. San-Miguel-Ayanz et al. (2013) have concluded that re ghting alone is not e cient to extinguish mega res. Therefore the development of re prevention models is essential to solving the problem. This discussion is currently very much alive in the public arena.
In the mainstream opinion, the intensive land-use of maritime pine and eucalyptus is generally considered the best economic option, associated with fuel management and short production cycles. This opinion implies a highly ammable homogeneous landscape, which will increase re severity and require higher economic costs in re ghting (for every taxpayer), whereas this type of forest production bene ts mainly the intermediaries of the wood business and the pulp and biomass industries. Moreover, studies on tree species' ammability proved that native broadleaved species burn less than Pinus pinaster and Eucalyptus globulus. Besides, this land-use is causing landscape degradation, and abandonment, loss of biodiversity and increasing the number, and intensity of natural catastrophes, such as rural res, landslides, oods and soil erosion.
In this study, the authors developed the FIRELAN conceptual and ecologically based model that recognizes the river basin' land morphology, the microclimate, and the dominant land-use as the fundamental factors that determine re behavior. The model establishes the need to create discontinuities in the landscape with less combustible land-uses and apply permaculture techniques, such as swales and ponds, towards a more re resilient landscape. In addition, this model has the advantage of ensuring the ecological sustainability of the landscape through the use of ecological land suitability for the proposed land uses. The case study was chosen for its representativeness of the Portuguese most affected region by rural res, with about 67 % of the study area burned in 2017 and dominated mainly by Pp and Eg (73 % of total area). However, FIRELAN can be replicated anywhere else since its components can be characterized in any circumstance.
Despite the dominance of Pp and Eg before 2017 res, according to the application of the model the land suitability area for Eg and Pp only ranges from 3,2% in Castanheira de Pera to 10,6% in Pedrógão Grande, i. e. 6,63% of total area average. This situation leads to the necessity of a paradigm shift from a mainstream perspective of short-term production landscape management to an ecologically-based landscape planning. This planning requires landscape restoration with a signi cant increase of native or archaeophytes species, agricultural areas, fuel discontinuities, and biodiversity. Edges and swales with ponds, at a more detailed scale, are also useful to reduce the extension of rural res. The results show that land-use and tree species diversity should change drastically, highlighting the importance of this model implementation towards a new landscape.
Regarding the 72 % transformation actions, 60.7 % of the area should be reserved for low-fuel species, as native or archaeophytes broadleaved trees, and only 5.8% is suitable for Pp and Eg plantations. Results show that agriculture can be expanded to 5.4% of the case study area considered as a fuel discontinuity assumed as a landscape strategy for preventing rural res ). However, in mountainous relief with low fertile soils and without agriculture suitability, the land-use must consider other planning solutions, such as different native trees or shrubs since they can play a crucial role as re-retardant land-use (Fernandes, 2013 This paper is signi cant for the Portuguese rural res planning legal framework because FIRELAN plans, as the proposed land-use plan showed, can give explicit indications of adequate land uses for re prevention and sustainability. This is a very signi cant contribution to solve the problem. This purpose is only possible with the awareness among stakeholders, the creation of infrastructures (tree nurseries, native wood processing industry), the availability of nancial instruments and cooperation between stakeholders, including landowners, to motivate them to the landscape transformation advocated in this paper.
The next step will focus on assessing landscape transformation costs and economic bene ts, including ecosystem services payments.

Conclusion
The FIRELAN model is a conceptual and ecologically based GIS model that integrates different principles related to landscape re resilience and ecological sustainability into a land-use plan, replicable in different landscape contexts. Since re behaviour is linked to the land morphology characteristics (hydrography, slope, solar radiation), the FIRELAN model was designed considering the river basin as a landscape unit. The FIRELAN network is developed along streams/valley bottoms and ridges/hilltops/headwaters functioning as shaded fuelbreaks to contain the perpendicular and the longitudinal re progression along the hillslope. This network ensures the effectiveness of discontinuities in the landscape with less combustible land-uses, as native broadleaved trees, agriculture or pastures, water elements or void spaces. They also function as a re-retardant technique and the protection of wildland-urban interface (WUI). The FIRELAN CA includes the remaining areas of the network, and despite their ecological value, are important for a wide variety of land-uses, including fastgrowing species (eucalyptus, maritime pine).
The FIRELAN model application to a simpli ed rural landscape severely damaged by recurrent rural res from Portugal's center region allowed us to conclude that the rural landscape with similar characteristics (very steep relief with dominance of maritime pine and eucalyptus) has to change. Since about 72% of the case study area needs transformation actions, it requires a signi cant increase of native or archaeophytes species, agricultural areas, land discontinuities and the restoration of biodiversity in Natura 2000 areas. In fact, the most ammable species need to decrease from the existent 73% to a 5.8% of the total case study area to provide a re resilient and sustainable landscape.
Besides the importance of creating a compartmentalized and multifunctional landscape, the FIRELAN model also restores the concept of familiar agriculture around settlements. The case study's application showed that a signi cant part of the buffer areas around settlements does not have adequate land uses, putting lives at risk. It is also fundamental to focus on the WUI, where the dominant species are maritime pine and eucalyptus, accounting for 54 % and 43,7%, respectively. The EN components are 79 % of the FIRELAN N area, whose implementation ensures soil and water conservation, biodiversity, and habitats.
The proposed transformation of the landscape will require a massive mobilization of society to carry it out. Since this area of Portugal has a smallholding, owner's absenteeism, and advanced age of those who stayed, the management methods have to go through technical entities' support to local owners and facilitate native forest industry, including exploration, processing, and marketing. First of all, this profound transformation requires political will, an effort to raise awareness, an enhanced role for the Public Administration at all levels, and the engagement of private agents, landowners, and users. The nancing will have to go through the institution of payment for ecosystem services to help the owners support the paradigm shift and raise awareness regarding the landscape's ecological functioning.
The FIRELAN model is a sustainable land-use planning solution that can contribute to revising existing Portuguese rural re planning framework. Therefore, this paper contributes to the discussion and represents an innovation regarding the existent re prevention models.           Percentage of preceded land use for each transformation action.

Figure 10
Comparison between FIRELAN network and PMDFCI in Figueiró dos Vinhos municipality: A -FIRELAN N; B -Linear features of FIRELAN N Note: The designations employed and the presentation of the material on this map do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of Research Square concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. This map has been provided by the authors.