Geospatial (Earth Observation (EO), satellite navigation) information is crucial for decision-making in disaster risk management. The benefits provided by geospatial information are best revealed when an analysis justifies how they can be effectively used in a decision. However, there is lack of systematic evidence on the socio-economic impact that geospatial information has for decision-making process. The overall objective of PREFER-RED-VALUE is to assess how geospatial information provided by the products portfolio of the H2020 proposal PREFER-RED is valuable to decision-makers in the phases of the wildfire management cycle (i.e. prevention, suppression and recovery). The portfolio of PREFER-RED includes products handling the phase of: i) prevention (i.e. Forest fuel maps, Vulnerability & Economic value maps, Risk Maps, Fuel Reduction maps, Seasonal Fire Hazard maps, Seasonal Risk Maps, Daily Fire Hazard Index maps, Prescribed fire maps; ii) tactical (i.e. Hot Spots, dynamics of the Fire Radiative Power); iii) recovery (i.e. Across-fire vegetation dynamics; Burned areas; Damage Severity maps; Soil erosion susceptibility; Biomass volume loss). The products are designed to enrich the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) which supports the services in charge of the protection of forests against fires in Europe, Middle East and North Africa. Exploring economic methods and approaches used to assess the value of geospatial information, this research develops an impact assessment framework allowing to evaluate the value of information offered by a combination of products which exploit the European EO programme Copernicus. An interdisciplinary scientific team will demonstrate how to assess the socio-economic benefits by engaging decision-makers (potential users of the PREFER-RED product portfolio) in a pilot study area in Sardinia, measuring the effectiveness of applying such information for both strategic and operational wildfire management procedures.
Innovation potential
The research adopts the innovative VOI approach to assess the socio-economic value of a wide products portfolio handling the whole cycle of wildfire management, so far almost unexplored. The outcome will be key:
1. To the users of the public sector (mainly Civil Protection Authorities, Governments, and Fire Services) for better understanding how geospatial information can generate socio-economic benefits in the phases of wildfire management and thus, prioritize interventions, by saving (avoiding and reducing) the cost of intervention and increasing the efficiency/effectiveness of the decision-making process;
2. To the private sector (insurance companies, infrastructures and transport companies, forest and agriculture industry, tourism industry) for business profitability;
3. To the scientific community for: i) developing a conceptual framework that can be used to correlate a qualitative (experiential) or a quantitative (statistical) relationship between geospatial information and observed activities in an economic sector; ii) better integrating socio-economic research into Geospatial research.
The research has high innovation potential.
An on-going project, S2IGI, funded by the Region of Sardinia, is helping to customize some products of PREFER-RED (e.g. daily hazard index, fuel reduction map, hot spot detection and burn scar mapping algorithms) to the regional needs. The impact assessment framework will allow to strengthen the collaboration with the Region and to replicate the approach with other regional/local authorities.
The portfolio of PREFER-RED is key component of a new research proposal that already passed the first stage of evaluation under the call H2020-LC-CLA-2020-2 (Forest Fires risk reduction towards an integrated fire management approach in the EU) where the impact assessment framework will be applied and further evolve.
New research proposals will be developed in the coming Horizon Europe that puts high priority to advance research on the assessment of socio-economic benefits of geospatial information for handling societal challenges.
Progress beyond SOTA
PREFER-RED-VALUE aims at showing the value of improved geospatial information for wildfire management, advancing the operational capabilities of Copernicus-EFFIS. The integration of PREFER-RED products will allow EFFIS: i) to scale up its current capabilities in forecasting and monitoring of wildfires to different (local, regional and national) scales; ii) providing standardized updated information at best refresh rates; iii) to increase the accuracy of the post-fire-season statistical information at local/regional/national scale. In particular the following evolution is foreseen:
Prevention phase
1) Yearly Fuel Map: up-scaling and computing over larger pilot area and at different territorial scales;
2) Daily fire hazard and Seasonal fire hazard mapping: expanding the area covered by each map at national level and evaluating the use of the Sentinel-3 images, beside MODIS;
3) Seasonal Exposure (Vulnerability & Economical Value) Mapping and Seasonal Risk Mapping: advancing the computation of socio-economical aspects;
4) Fuel Reduction mapping and Prescribed Fires mapping: enlarging the area covered; developing a new product based on fuel map and weather conditions which daily provides spatialized information on the fire Rate of Spread;
5) Burn Scars mapping: integrating Sentinel-2 data into the processing chains.
Recovery phase
1) Across-fire vegetation dynamics: advancing the quantitative assessment of the vegetation regeneration and analyzing the product up scaling;
2) 3D Fire Damage Assessment Map: further developing the soil erosion susceptibility index and a landslide susceptibility index for fire affected areas;
3) Severity damage map: introducing the estimate of burned biomass emissions in the atmosphere.
Tactical phase
1) Active fire characterization: advancing the collection of location based information suitable to support the validation of Hot Spot and to provide useful in situ information.
Beyond SOTA of economic approaches
The evaluation clusters previously illustrated represent different perspectives to the discussion and are often combined within one study. This project will particularly focus on the VOI approach but looking at micro- and macroeconomic methodologies to reflect value of EO-based information. Identifying the VOI of an information product in a decision type can be achieved through a Value Tree Analysis (VTA) approach that is a tool useful for defining concepts, identifying objectives, and creating a hierarchical framework of objectives, and this used to support decision-making processes (Keeney et al. 1990; Sylak- Glassman et al. 2016).
The impact assessment framework of PREFER-RED-VALUE will build on the knowledge developed by the ongoing EOValue H2020 project (2018-2020), implemented by JRC and DG RTD, aimed at assessing the socio-economic value of geospatial information research in EU.