Assessment of potential sites for the installation of observation towers for forest fire risk prevention

Abstract

The high incidence of forest fires observed in Conservation Units makes this event a threat to the environmental protection of these areas. This article presents the mapping of areas susceptible to forest fires and the identification of potential locations for the installation of forest fire watchtowers for the Altamiro de Moura Pacheco and João Leite State parks and surrounding area, 3.0 km from the parks’ boundaries, using free GIS tools. The final fire risk map was obtained through the weighted average of the main factors related to forest fires, such as: slope angle, hypsometry, orientation of the slopes, road system and trails, urban perimeter, land use, temperature, humidity and exposure to winds. For the determination of potential locations for fire observation towers, the following factors were considered: relief (higher elevations), proximity of roads, proximity to regions classified as moderate and high risk, and land use. The results showed that 9,724.66 ha (41.4%) of the evaluated parks areas have high fire risk. The fire risk map was validated considering the hotspots made available by INPE (2017), obtaining more than 60% accuracy in relation to high risk areas. Regarding the locations indicated for the installation of fire observation towers, the installation of only one tower provided the largest view of the study areas, 56.1%. By combining the installation of two towers, it was possible to obtain 71.1% visualization coverage of the entire studied areas. Thus, it was shown that environmental management and decision-making regarding the monitoring of forest fire risks in protected regions can be more successful when complemented with geotechnology tools.

Keywords:
Park; Cerrado; GIS; Multicriteria analysis