Construcción y estimación de un Sistema de Índices de Prevención de Incendios Forestales (SIPIF) para el parque Metropolitano Guangüiltagua de Quito

Abstract

A huge social, economical and environmental impact problem at the Distrito Metropolitano de Quito (DMQ) are the forest fires. Therefore, in this project we developed a methodology to estimate wildfires occurrence and their spread. It is based on the construction of indexes using Bayesian statistical tools. Moreover, we provided an application for forest fires prediction which can be applied as a tool for fire-fighting planning and thus reducing their impact. Since the DMQ has a variety of micro-climates, this project was focused on the analysis of a highly wildfire-affected area: Guangüiltagua Metropolitan Park. Whereas the fire prevention index provides the probability associated with the fire occurrence, the fire spread index maps out the probable number hectares consumed by the fire if a wildfire occurs. Both indexes were defined by using four categories ranging from low to severe. The main goal of this project: the Prevention System and Forest Fire Propagation (PSFF) was constituted by the above mentioned indexes. Additionally, the results are displayed through a web application developed using the Shiny module, part of the statistical package R-Project.