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Cumulative and synergistic impacts from environmental pressures, particularly in low-lying tropical coastal regions, present challenges for the governance of ecosystems, which provide natural resource-based livelihoods for communities. Here, we seek to understand the relationship between responses to the impacts of El Niño and La Niña events and the vulnerability of mangrove-dependent communities in the Caribbean region of Colombia. Using two case study sites, we show how communities are impacted by, and undertake reactive short-term responses to, El Niño and La Niña events, and how such responses can affect their adaptive capacity to progressive environmental deterioration. We show that certain coping measures to climate variability currently deliver maladaptive outcomes, resulting in circumstances that could contribute to system ‘lock-in’ and engender undesirable ecological states, exacerbating future livelihood vulnerabilities. We highlight the significant role of social barriers on vulnerabilities within the region, including perceptions of state abandonment, mistrust and conflicts with authorities. Opportunities to reduce vulnerability include enhancing the communities’ capacity to adopt more positive and preventative responses based on demonstrable experiential learning capacity. However, these will require close cooperation between formal and informal organisations at different levels, and the development of shared coherent adaptation strategies to manage the complexity of multiple interacting environmental and climatic pressures.
Julia Touza; Carmen Lacambra; Alexandra Kiss; Rosa Mato Amboage; Paula Sierra; Martin Solan; Jasmin A. Godbold; Thomas Spencer; Piran C. L. White. Coping and Adaptation in Response to Environmental and Climatic Stressors in Caribbean Coastal Communities. Environmental Management 2021, 1 .
AMA StyleJulia Touza, Carmen Lacambra, Alexandra Kiss, Rosa Mato Amboage, Paula Sierra, Martin Solan, Jasmin A. Godbold, Thomas Spencer, Piran C. L. White. Coping and Adaptation in Response to Environmental and Climatic Stressors in Caribbean Coastal Communities. Environmental Management. 2021; ():1.
Chicago/Turabian StyleJulia Touza; Carmen Lacambra; Alexandra Kiss; Rosa Mato Amboage; Paula Sierra; Martin Solan; Jasmin A. Godbold; Thomas Spencer; Piran C. L. White. 2021. "Coping and Adaptation in Response to Environmental and Climatic Stressors in Caribbean Coastal Communities." Environmental Management , no. : 1.
In October 2017, an extreme wildfire outbreak in the NW of the Iberian Peninsula burned thousands of hectares, resulting in human deaths and important economic damage. This paper provides a first comprehensive assessment of the exposure of the local communities in the Spanish region of Galicia, where forestlands routinely experience fire outbreaks, as the one that occurred in 14th, 15th and 16th October with more than two hundred fire incidents. We delimitate the wildfire perimeters, characterize the area burned in regards to vegetation characteristics, evaluate the affected wildland-urban interface (WUI), and quantify the population and buildings exposed to wildfires. The burned area was found to be unevenly distributed, concentrated in the south of the region, and in municipalities with nearly half of their lands under WUI. This resulted in a high level of exposure in the affected lands. We estimated that 51 communities were inside fire perimeters. Moreover, 873 communities with more than 87,000 people residing on them, were at a close distance of less than 1 km away. This study demonstrates the importance of understanding extreme wildfire events and their potential impacts which can guide how best communities can respond to them. The high number of population exposed to the studied event shows the necessity of integrating land-use planning with wildfire risk prevention and preparedness.
María-Luisa Chas-Amil; Eduardo García-Martínez; Julia Touza. Iberian Peninsula October 2017 wildfires: Burned area and population exposure in Galicia (NW of Spain). International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 2020, 48, 101623 .
AMA StyleMaría-Luisa Chas-Amil, Eduardo García-Martínez, Julia Touza. Iberian Peninsula October 2017 wildfires: Burned area and population exposure in Galicia (NW of Spain). International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. 2020; 48 ():101623.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMaría-Luisa Chas-Amil; Eduardo García-Martínez; Julia Touza. 2020. "Iberian Peninsula October 2017 wildfires: Burned area and population exposure in Galicia (NW of Spain)." International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 48, no. : 101623.
The effects of renewable energy transitions on energy costs and economic growth have led to cost concerns and a prioritisation of economic issues during the economic crisis. Bulgaria, the EU's poorest state has nevertheless already achieved its 2020 renewable energy targets. This achievement seems to challenge the widely held assumption that poorer countries struggle to meet environmental objectives. This paper analyses the drivers and implications of Bulgaria's renewables expansion in order to test general expectations on influential factors shaping renewable energy transitions in the context of poor states. The analysis employs the energy justice framework to identify the justice, equity and fairness implications of Bulgaria's renewable energy for its energy system. Despite the clear justice implications raised by changing energy systems, there are limited pieces analysing the relationship between renewable energy transitions and energy justice. The analysis shows that whilst Bulgaria was able to reach its renewables targets, the mismanaged, opaque and corrupted policy framework undermines the longterm viability of its energy transition. The analysis confirms the importance of long term strategies, effective policies and a supportive macroeconomic context for renewable energy transitions, and highlights the negative implications of renewables to achieve greater energy justice if these factors are omitted.
Jan-Justus Andreas; Charlotte Burns; Julia Touza. Overcoming energy injustice? Bulgaria’s renewable energy transition in times of crisis. Energy Research & Social Science 2018, 42, 44 -52.
AMA StyleJan-Justus Andreas, Charlotte Burns, Julia Touza. Overcoming energy injustice? Bulgaria’s renewable energy transition in times of crisis. Energy Research & Social Science. 2018; 42 ():44-52.
Chicago/Turabian StyleJan-Justus Andreas; Charlotte Burns; Julia Touza. 2018. "Overcoming energy injustice? Bulgaria’s renewable energy transition in times of crisis." Energy Research & Social Science 42, no. : 44-52.
Plantations with alien forest species could be a major way for invasive plant and animal species to become introduced and naturally established in a territory, but the sensitivity of plantations with native forest species to invasive plant and animal species is still unknown. This paper studies the probability of the presence and the richness of invasive species of three different taxa (plants, birds, and mammals) in pine forests of southwestern Europe. To do so, the relative contribution from natural and planted forests is analysed to explain the presence and the richness of invasive species in 3950 cells (10 km × 10 km) covering Spain after controlling for the possible effects of variables related to geography, climate, land use, landscape, and human pressure on the environment. Our results show that man’s influence on the establishment of invasive species is notable. However, those forests that are the most intensely managed by man, such as pine plantations with native species, seem less susceptible to the establishment and propagation of invasive species. Reasons may be found in those planted pine forests being closely monitored, controlled, and managed by man. Therefore, it is argued that efforts related to the early warning systems of invasive species should be focused on natural pine forests.
Maria Martínez-Jauregui; Mario Soliño; Jesús Martínez-Fernández; Julia Touza. Managing the Early Warning Systems of Invasive Species of Plants, Birds, and Mammals in Natural and Planted Pine Forests. Forests 2018, 9, 170 .
AMA StyleMaria Martínez-Jauregui, Mario Soliño, Jesús Martínez-Fernández, Julia Touza. Managing the Early Warning Systems of Invasive Species of Plants, Birds, and Mammals in Natural and Planted Pine Forests. Forests. 2018; 9 (4):170.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMaria Martínez-Jauregui; Mario Soliño; Jesús Martínez-Fernández; Julia Touza. 2018. "Managing the Early Warning Systems of Invasive Species of Plants, Birds, and Mammals in Natural and Planted Pine Forests." Forests 9, no. 4: 170.
María Calviño-Cancela; María Luisa Chas-Amil; Eduardo D. García-Martínez; Julia Touza. Interacting effects of topography, vegetation, human activities and wildland-urban interfaces on wildfire ignition risk. Forest Ecology and Management 2017, 397, 10 -17.
AMA StyleMaría Calviño-Cancela, María Luisa Chas-Amil, Eduardo D. García-Martínez, Julia Touza. Interacting effects of topography, vegetation, human activities and wildland-urban interfaces on wildfire ignition risk. Forest Ecology and Management. 2017; 397 ():10-17.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMaría Calviño-Cancela; María Luisa Chas-Amil; Eduardo D. García-Martínez; Julia Touza. 2017. "Interacting effects of topography, vegetation, human activities and wildland-urban interfaces on wildfire ignition risk." Forest Ecology and Management 397, no. : 10-17.
Wildland-urban interfaces (WUIs) are areas where urban settlements and wildland vegetation intermingle, making the interaction between human activities and wildlife especially intense. Their relevance is increasing worldwide as they are expanding and are associated with fire risk. The WUI may affect the fire risk associated with the type of vegetation (land cover/land use; LULC), a well-known risk factor, due to differences in the type and intensity of human activities in different LULCs within and outside WUIs. No previous studies analyse this interaction between the effects of the WUI and the LULC, despite its importance for understanding the patterns of fire risk, an essential prerequisite to undertake management decisions that can influence fire regimes. The aim of this study is to assess the effect of the WUI on fire ignition risk and the area burned, and the interaction between its effect and that of the LULC. We used a database of 26,838 wildfires recorded in 2006–2011 in NW Spain and compared fire patterns in relation to WUI and LULC with a random model, using a Montecarlo approach. There was a clear effect of the WUI on the risk of both fire ignition and spread (higher ignition risk but lower risk of spread in WUIs). The risk of fire was also affected by LULC and, interestingly, the pattern among LULCs differed between WUI and non-WUI areas. This interaction WUI × LULC was particularly important for forestry plantations, which showed the highest increase in ignition risk in WUI compared to non-WUI areas. Native forests and agricultural areas had the lowest ignition risk. Agricultural areas showed the smallest difference in fire size between WUI and non-WUI areas, while shrublands showed much larger fires outside WUIs. Deliberate fires were larger in general than those with other causes, especially outside the WUI. The differences found between LULCs in fire risk, both in WUI and non-WUI areas, have interesting implications for fire management. Promotion of land covers with low fire risk should be considered as a low cost alternative to the usual fire prevention measures based on fuel load reduction, which require the continuous clearing of vegetation. In this regard, the low fire risk in native forests should be taken into account. Native forests naturally colonize many areas in the study region and require low or no management, in contrast with agricultural areas, also with low fire risk but requiring continuous management in order to avoid colonization by natural vegetation.
María Calviño-Cancela; María L. Chas-Amil; Eduardo D. García-Martínez; Julia Touza. Wildfire risk associated with different vegetation types within and outside wildland-urban interfaces. Forest Ecology and Management 2016, 372, 1 -9.
AMA StyleMaría Calviño-Cancela, María L. Chas-Amil, Eduardo D. García-Martínez, Julia Touza. Wildfire risk associated with different vegetation types within and outside wildland-urban interfaces. Forest Ecology and Management. 2016; 372 ():1-9.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMaría Calviño-Cancela; María L. Chas-Amil; Eduardo D. García-Martínez; Julia Touza. 2016. "Wildfire risk associated with different vegetation types within and outside wildland-urban interfaces." Forest Ecology and Management 372, no. : 1-9.
Invasive pests in agricultural settings may have severe consequences for agricultural production, reducing yields and the value of crops. Once an invader population has established, controlling it tends to be very expensive. Therefore, when the potential impacts on production may be great, protection against initial establishment is often perceived to be the most cost-effective measure. Increasing attention in the ecological literature is being given to the possibility of curbing invasion processes by manipulating the field and cropping patterns in agricultural landscapes, so that they are less conducive to the spread of pests. However, the economic implications of such interventions have received far less attention. This paper uses a stochastic spatial model to identify the key processes that influence the vulnerability of a fragmented agricultural landscape to pests. We explore the interaction between the divergent forces of ecological invasion pressure and economic returns to scale, in relation to the level of clustering of crop fields. Results show that the most cost-effective distances between crop fields in terms of reducing food production impacts from an invasive pest are determined by a delicate balance of these two forces and depend on the values of the ecological and economic parameters involved. If agricultural productivity declines slowly with increasing distance between fields and the dispersal range of the potential invader is high, manipulation of cropping structure has the potential to protect against invasion outbreaks and the farmer can gain benefit overall from maintaining greater distances between fields of similar crops.
Martin Drechsler; Julia Touza; Piran C. L. White; Glyn Jones. Agricultural landscape structure and invasive species: the cost-effective level of crop field clustering. Food Security 2016, 8, 111 -121.
AMA StyleMartin Drechsler, Julia Touza, Piran C. L. White, Glyn Jones. Agricultural landscape structure and invasive species: the cost-effective level of crop field clustering. Food Security. 2016; 8 (1):111-121.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMartin Drechsler; Julia Touza; Piran C. L. White; Glyn Jones. 2016. "Agricultural landscape structure and invasive species: the cost-effective level of crop field clustering." Food Security 8, no. 1: 111-121.
Development of efficient forest wildfire policies requires an understanding of the underlying reasons behind forest fire occurrences. Globally, there is a close relationship between forest wildfires and human activities; most wildfires are human events due to negligence (e.g., agricultural burning escapes) and deliberate actions (e.g., vandalism, pyromania, revenge, land use change attempts). We model the risk of wildfire as a function of the spatial pattern of urban development and the abandonment/intensity of agricultural and forestry activities, while controlling for biophysical and climatic factors. We use a count data approach to model deliberately set fires in Galicia, N.W. Spain, where wildfire is a significant threat to forest ecosystems, with nearly 100,000 wildfires recorded during a thirteen-year period (1999–2011). The spatial units of analysis are more than 3600 parishes. Data for the human influences are derived from fine-resolution maps of wildland–urban interface (WUI), housing spatial arrangements, road density, forest ownership, and vegetation type. We found wildfire risk to be higher where there are human populations and development/urbanisation pressure, as well as in unattended forest areas due to both rural exodus and a fragmented forest ownership structure that complicates the profitability of forestry practices. To better help direct management efforts, parameter estimates from our model were used to predict wildfire counts under alternative scenarios that account for variation across space on future land-use conditions. Policies that incentivize cooperative forest management and that constrain urban development in wildlands at hotspot fire locations are shown to reduce wildfire risk. Our results highlight the need for spatially targeted fire management strategies.
M.L. Chas-Amil; J.P. Prestemon; C.J. McClean; J. Touza. Human-ignited wildfire patterns and responses to policy shifts. Applied Geography 2014, 56, 164 -176.
AMA StyleM.L. Chas-Amil, J.P. Prestemon, C.J. McClean, J. Touza. Human-ignited wildfire patterns and responses to policy shifts. Applied Geography. 2014; 56 ():164-176.
Chicago/Turabian StyleM.L. Chas-Amil; J.P. Prestemon; C.J. McClean; J. Touza. 2014. "Human-ignited wildfire patterns and responses to policy shifts." Applied Geography 56, no. : 164-176.
María Calviño-Cancela; María L. Chas-Amil; Julia Touza; Domingos Xavier Viegas. Assessment of fire risk in relation to land cover in WUI areas. Advances in forest fire research 2014, 657 -664.
AMA StyleMaría Calviño-Cancela, María L. Chas-Amil, Julia Touza, Domingos Xavier Viegas. Assessment of fire risk in relation to land cover in WUI areas. Advances in forest fire research. 2014; ():657-664.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMaría Calviño-Cancela; María L. Chas-Amil; Julia Touza; Domingos Xavier Viegas. 2014. "Assessment of fire risk in relation to land cover in WUI areas." Advances in forest fire research , no. : 657-664.
We report daily time series models containing both temporal and spatiotemporal lags, which are applied to forecasting intentional wildfires in Galicia, Spain. Models are estimated independently for each of the 19 forest districts in Galicia using a 1999–2003 training dataset and evaluated out-of-sample with a 2004–06 dataset. Poisson autoregressive models of order P – PAR(P) models – significantly out-perform competing alternative models over both in-sample and out-of-sample datasets, reducing out-of-sample root-mean-squared errors by an average of 15%. PAR(P) and static Poisson models included covariates deriving from crime theory, including the temporal and spatiotemporal autoregressive time series components. Estimates indicate highly significant autoregressive components, lasting up to 3 days, and spatiotemporal autoregression, lasting up to 2 days. Models also applied to predict the effect of increased arrest rates for illegal intentional firesetting indicate that the direct long-run effect of an additional firesetting arrest, summed across forest districts in Galicia, is –139.6 intentional wildfires, equivalent to a long-run elasticity of –0.94.
Jeffrey P. Prestemon; María Luisa Chas-Amil; Julia M. Touza; Scott L. Goodrick. Forecasting intentional wildfires using temporal and spatiotemporal autocorrelations. International Journal of Wildland Fire 2012, 21, 743 -754.
AMA StyleJeffrey P. Prestemon, María Luisa Chas-Amil, Julia M. Touza, Scott L. Goodrick. Forecasting intentional wildfires using temporal and spatiotemporal autocorrelations. International Journal of Wildland Fire. 2012; 21 (6):743-754.
Chicago/Turabian StyleJeffrey P. Prestemon; María Luisa Chas-Amil; Julia M. Touza; Scott L. Goodrick. 2012. "Forecasting intentional wildfires using temporal and spatiotemporal autocorrelations." International Journal of Wildland Fire 21, no. 6: 743-754.
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Julia Touza; Glyn Jones; Katharina Dehnen-Schmutz. Economic Analysis of Invasive Species Policies. Mediterranean-Type Ecosystems 2007, 353 -366.
AMA StyleJulia Touza, Glyn Jones, Katharina Dehnen-Schmutz. Economic Analysis of Invasive Species Policies. Mediterranean-Type Ecosystems. 2007; ():353-366.
Chicago/Turabian StyleJulia Touza; Glyn Jones; Katharina Dehnen-Schmutz. 2007. "Economic Analysis of Invasive Species Policies." Mediterranean-Type Ecosystems , no. : 353-366.