Forest Fire Risk Reduction Strategies: Results and Perspectives of the MED-Foreste Project ^†

Abstract

MED-Foreste—management of forest ecosystems to reduce wildfire risk—is a “simple” project, started in April 2019, co-financed by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) as a part of a larger family of projects called MED (MEDiterranean area) between Italy and France. The main aim of MED-Foreste is to increase and disseminate fire prevention awareness between local decision makers and citizens through experimental treatments and pilot sites designed to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of different strategies of fire risk reduction in each region involved. The assessment of different treatments (mechanized understory reduction, thinning, pruning, prescribed fire, and grazing), applied individually or in combination (i.e., prescribed fire or grazing after mechanized fuel reduction), was carried out starting from different points of view. Taking into account economical, ecological, and social impacts, MED-Foreste aims to provide a wide set of information to decision makers, permitting them to choose the best strategy for their territory in terms of fire risk reduction, costs, ecological responses, and social feedback. Ecological impacts and fuel reduction were analyzed through a pre–post intervention survey in each experimental pilot site and with a monitoring plan in order to evaluate the duration of treatments, fuel dynamics, and biodiversity evolution. Environmental impacts were also taken into account through a life cycle assessment approach considering all the inputs/outputs involved in fuel treatments in relation to their duration (a similar condition to pretreatment status). Costs were analyzed by an analytical approach and compared to regional price lists in order to define standard costs for each treatment type with the aim to provide a tool to ease decision processes and better exploit financing opportunities in national rural development programs. Moreover, a specific framework of administrative good practices was developed to analyze social impacts related to the involved territories.