Climate change impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016

Climate change impacts on environmental systems
humidity, wind and precipitation from the European
Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
(ECMWF). Other driving factors of fire regimes, such
as land-use changes or fuel dynamics, are not taken
into account by the SSR. The upper left map shows
the average SSR values during the period 1981–2010;
the lower left map shows the linear trends over this
period, which indicate that there has been a significant
increase in forest fire danger in several regions in
Europe.
Projections
Climate change projections suggest substantial
warming and increases in the number of droughts,
heat waves and dry spells across most of the
Mediterranean area and more generally in southern
Europe (see Sections 3.2.3 and 4.3.4). These projected
changes would increase the length and severity of
the fire season, the area at risk and the probability
of large fires, possibly enhancing desertification
(Moreno, 2014).
Map 4.18 also includes fire danger projections for
projected climate conditions in 2071–2100 (upper
right map: projected state; lower right map: projected
change). The results suggest that climate change
would lead to a marked increase of fire potential in
south‐eastern and south-western Europe; in relative
terms, the increase in SSR would be particularly strong
in western-central Europe (Khabarov et al., 2014).
Similar results were obtained for other forest fire
indices, such as the FWI (Bedia et al., 2013).
The PESETA II study ( 68 ) has estimated that the burnt
area in southern Europe would more than double
during the 21st century for a reference climate scenario
and increase by nearly 50 % for a 2 °C scenario
(Ciscar et al., 2014). Another study has estimated a
potential increase in burnt areas in Europe by about
200 % during the 21st century under a high emissions
scenario (SRES A2) assuming no adaptation. The forest
fire risk could be substantially reduced by additional
adaptation measures, such as prescribed burning, fire
breaks and behavioural changes (Khabarov et al., 2014).
Figure 4.18
Number of forest fires and burnt area in five southern European countries
Number of fires
80 000
70 000
60 000
50 000
40 000
30 000
20 000
10 000
0
1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
Burnt area (1 000 ha)
1 000
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
Portugal Spain France Italy Greece Total
Note: Number of forest fires (left) and burnt area (right) in five southern European countries from 1980 to 2013.
Source: Adapted from San-Miguel-Ayanz et al., 2013 and Schmuck et al., 2015.
( 68 ) Projection of Economic impacts of climate change in Sectors of the European Union based on bottom-up Analysis, see https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/
en/peseta.
178 Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016 | An indicator-based report