Characterization of wildland-urban interfaces for fire prevention in the province of Valencia (Spain)

Aim of study . The present study is the first attempt to characterize and map wildland-urban interfaces (WUIs) in eastern Spain (province of Valencia) and its relationship with wildfire occurrence.  Area of study . The study area is located in eastern Spain in the province of Valencia. The area covers 246,426 ha and includes four administrative departments comprising 86 municipalities. Material and methods . The methodology integrates housing density and vegetation aggregation for large-scale fire prevention using the WUImap ® ARC GIS tool. A PLS model was developed to relate wildfire occurrence and WUI typologies. Main results . The results show that 21% of housing can be considered as WUIs, highlighting the high degree of fire hazard in the study area. The PLS model shows that the 4 typologies outside of WUI present lower significance than most of WUI typologies. The types of WUI most related to fire occurrence ( Number of Fires and Area Burned ) are Insolated and Scattered housing with Low or High vegetation aggregation. The type Insolated housing with low aggregation presents the highest significance to explain wildfire occurrence. Research highlights: A significant relationship between wildfire occurrence the study area and WUI has been demonstrated. The obtained results verify the ability of WUImap tool in classifying large-scale administrative departments and its suitability for application to prioritize preventive actions in the Mediterranean areas Key words : Housing density; PLS (Partial Least Squares) model; vegetation aggregation; WUImap.