La Kretz Center for California Conservation Science

13 Feb, 12 PM - 16 Apr, 01 PM

The primary objective for this scholarship is to conduct a research project, entitled New democracy in Madrid and Barcelona: from inter-city competition to territorial competitiveness? in collaboration with Prof. John Agnew (Department of Geography, UCLA): The aim of this research project is to analyse the socio-spatial effects of this new policy style not only on urban planning but also on municipal cooperation to enhance multi-scale effects on territorial development. A systemic and empirical approach will be adopted to demonstrate that the promotion of an inclusive political and socio-spatial process at local level is paving the way for cohesion and urban competitiveness at various scales (local, national and European). The second objective during my stay is further developing a collaboration with Dr. Jon Keeley (USGS Western Ecological Research Center) and Dr. Alexandra Syphard (Conservation Biology Institute, San Diego) for the purpose of working on fire danger in Mediterranean ecosystems and producing a very useful paper that examines the similarities across two mediterranean-climate ecosystems (Spain and California). During my stay at the UCLA La Kretz Center for California Conservation Science in summer 2015, I had the opportunity to exchange ideas with multiple scientists in Southern California about the intersection of our mutual research interests in fire ecology and management. In particular, I discovered the potential importance of merging our different ideas regarding the concept of fire scenarios, which has provided an important conceptual foundation for much of our wildfire research in both Spain and California. Whereas in Spain, fire scenarios refer to distinct spatial contexts, that is, the stage or territorial landscape where different factors are acting; in California these scenarios relate to alternative temporal pathways for future predictions. In both of these Mediterranean landscapes, the concept can provide a new framework for understanding the interactions between human and ecological systems and for using this understanding to design management alternatives that minimize fire risk while maintaining biodiversity. This discussion led us to develop a proposal for a new broadly-based review of fire scenarios as an integrative concept of biogeophysical and social structures and processes at a landscape level. The general goal of this research to clarify conceptual differences between the temporal simulation modeling approach and the context-specific and place-based approach to fire scenarios and to highlight the opportunities of their convergence for balancing fire hazard reduction and resource protection in the context of global change. We emphasize a land-type definition of fire scenarios, which is providing a suitable larger landscape scale perspective for managing ecosystems and mitigating risks to human communities.

Visit #58025 @La Kretz Center for California Conservation Science

Approved

Under Project # 41119 | Research

crismont@ghis.ucm.es

faculty - Complutense University of Madrid

Reservation Members(s)

Prof. Cristina Montiel Molina Feb 13 - Apr 16, 2019 (63 days)

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Field Station 1 Feb 13 - Apr 16, 2019