GEPRIF Project: New technologies for reducing the severity of forest fires

Basic Research Project funded by RTA program (Agricultural Technologies and Resources) from INIA (National Institute for Agricultural and Food Technology and Research) aimed at developing efficient methodologies to reduce the impact of forest fires through integrated management.
The objectives of the project are to:

  • Obtain new systems for the quantification of forest fuels, including modelisation and mapping using different type of sensors.
  • Evaluate the efficiency of fuel treatments and their ecological effects.
  • Estimate the difficulty of fire extinction, and the influence of the smouldering phase on soil severity.
  • Predict the potential fire severity and the effects of fuel treatments to determine priority action areas.
  • Evaluate post-fire hydrological-forest restoration interventions and test new materials for reducing erosion risk.
  • Evaluate the economic efficiency of prevention, fire-fighting and restoration activities.

The research consortium, coordinated by the Forest Fire Laboratory of INIA (National Institute for Agricultural and Food Technology and Research) comprises specialist teams from universities (Santiago de Compostela, Córdoba and Castilla-La Mancha), Lourizán Forest Research Centre and Agresta, which contributes both to scientific advances and to the transfer of results.