Wildland urban interface growth during the last 50 years in North Sardinia, Italy: implications for fire risk

Mediterranean Basin countries are historically subjected to forest fires, which often threaten wildland-urban interface (WUI) areas. Throughout most of Mediterranean coastal areas, potential fire risk for villages, tourist resorts, other human activities and people is really high, particularly in summer when human presence increases, extreme weather conditions can occur, and vegetation is highly flammable. Therefore, developing planning policies is essential for implementing strategies to prevent and reduce wildfire risk in WUI areas. Recently, several authors stressed the importance of estimating trend in expansion of WUI areas. Tracking past and recent expansion trends allows to minimize their impact, to determine likely extent, location and pattern of WUI in the future, and to provide information for long-term land use planning and natural resource management. In this study we focus on analysing and evaluating the temporal evolution, over the period 1954-2008, of WUI areas in two coastal regions located in North Sardinia, Italy, both characterized by large tourism development during the last fifty years. Several simulations by Farsite fire spread and behaviour simulator were also performed in order to evaluate the potential of this approach in providing useful information for mitigating fire danger and risk in WUI areas.