Severe wildfire in a mediterranean forest

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2018. This case study illustrates the equivalency analysis for estimating ex post environmental damage and appropriate compensatory remediation following a severe wildfire caused by a power line in a forest protected under the European Union Habitats Directive (HD). The study addresses long-term environmental damage (e.g., over several decades) by a large-scale disturbance in a terrestrial ecosystem, and includes an analysis of uncertainty associated with the potential occurrence of natural future fire events in the area. Accounting for the probability of natural future forest fires directly affects both baseline and compensatory remediation options by reducing the habitat area compared to an assumption of no future forest fires. Only natural forest fires, i.e., 10% of all forest fires, have been included in the calculations of both the baseline and the compensatory remediation, since the operator may not be made liable for accidental or provoked forest fires. The impact of this hypothesis is tested by means of a sensitivity analysis. The case study illustrates: • Considerations in selecting a metric from various potential ones (hectares, trees, biomass, habitat quality) for terrestrial habitats included in the HD; • Application of a value equivalency approach (specifically, value-to-value); • Analysis of key variables (e.g., differences in metrics, single/multiple metrics, on-site/off-site implementation); and • Sensitivity of the results to changes in four key model parameters (i.e. area of future forest fires, tree mortality, percentage of natural forest fires and tree minimum diameter at breast height).