Workshop 2 : Banyuls 2023

The emergence of more intense and extreme forest fires in Europe poses a threat to forests, economic well-being and human health and safety. Against a background of rapid climate change, which is expected to further exacerbate fire risk in most European regions, many questions remain as to how the structure and composition of forests can mitigate these trends. This is the case in France, for example, where the extreme fire season of 2022 in the south-west of the country has fuelled debate about the role of forest structure and composition in the occurrence and intensity of forest fires.

These debates highlight the lack of solid scientific knowledge about the impact of vegetation characteristics on fire behaviour and how these characteristics are determined by physiological processes such as plant hydraulics. These gaps hamper our ability to provide sound scientific evidence on a number of fundamental questions for Europe's main forests, such as: ‘Are monoculture stands more vulnerable to fire? ’Are monocultures more vulnerable to fire than mixtures? 

 Is the risk of fire higher in coniferous than in deciduous forests? Can microclimatic effects induced by forest structure limit the impact of drought on forest flammability? How will fire risk react to new and changing climatic conditions in different ecosystems?

Improving our understanding of these issues requires an interdisciplinary approach, ranging from fire science to ecology and forestry. In this workshop, we will seek to fill these gaps and synthesise scientific knowledge and debate on the underlying physiological and ecological processes that influence fire risk at the stand scale. To do this, a multidisciplinary group of researchers will be brought together with the following objectives.
- Identify the main research questions and gaps in knowledge on the relationship between tree diversity, plant functioning and fire risk in European forests. A synthesis document will be drawn up to summarise the scientific results of the workshop.
- Stimulate interaction between researchers in forestry, ecological sciences and fire sciences and encourage connections between European research institutes.

- Building a network of interdisciplinary researchers who will be able to respond to future calls for projects.