Nadia Ursino, nadia.ursino@unipd.it

Reseach areas:

Risk assessment of fire in Mediterranean forests and Wildland-Urban interface
Land use change, urbanization, and extreme events, including fire have markedly shaped Mediterranean ecosystems. Wildfire is an integral component of ecosystem functioning which inevitably poses a threat to humans at the urban-forest interface.
With a view to gaining an insight into the mechanisms underlying fire dynamics, fire control, and prevention, models that predicts the wildfire regime in fire-prone Mediterranean ecoregions are formulated and validated.
Today, wildfires are more devastating, due to climate change and land use change.
Starting at a no-fire regime when the land is almost completely cultivated, the ecosystem reaches a chaotic fire regime, passing through intermediate land development stages characterized by limit cycle fire dynamics. Although, fire regime is still to be disentangled at the urban-forest interface.

Keywords: urban hydrology, fire regime