The wildland-urban interface map of Italy: A nationwide dataset for wildfire risk management

Abstract

A wildland-urban interface (WUI) raster map was created for the Italian peninsula with a resolution of 30 m per pixel. The map creation process consisted of three fundamental steps: (1) selection of buildings within the wildland-urban interface areas and subsequent classification of these into isolated, scattered, and clustered buildings; (2) creation of the tree canopy cover layer; (3) generation of WUI map by the intersection of two previous products. According to the WUI map, more than half of the total area of Italy is occupied by interface areas. Areas with buildings classified as clustered (24.61%) and scattered (19.15%) predominate on the territory compared to isolated buildings (14.93%). Most of the buildings are located in areas with a tree cover canopy between up to 64%. This map is functional to the implementation of forest fire prevention plans and to the identification of buildings that are close to fire risk areas such as forests, grasslands, and pastures.

Keywords

• Fire management
• Forest
• Italy
• Wildfires
• Wildland-urban interface