Optimizing landscape configuration and fire management policies to minimize expected losses from EWE

Prioritizing investments in forest and fuel management projects and measuring outcomes is a significant challenge. As a result, the need to prioritize and strategically place fuel treatments requires a methodological approach that accounts for the implementation costs and prioritization based on different management objectives for different landscapes. For that purpose, the ForSys spatial planning system was used to modernize tools to prioritize forest and fuel management investments and understand trade-offs among alternative scenarios. In addition, a proposed methodological framework has been applied on a forest matrix scenario that reflects alternative spatial distributions of forest biophysical attributes, to obtain an optimized spatial landscape configuration to increase resilience and address concerns with EWE and, to minimize potential losses caused by EWE by the optimal allocation of management options over the landscape.