Wildfire Regimes and Governance Systems: Creating Urgency Without a Crisis

Amidst globally changing wildfire activity, increasing attention is focused on the role of the governance system as one component interacting with wildfire regimes and shaping their associated impact. Using an interdisciplinary approach with methods from the natural and the social sciences, the aim of this dissertation was to explore characteristics of governance systems for wildfire regimes theoretically and empirically based on two case studies.
In Chapter 1, the significance of the problem was illustrated. A literature review was conducted to define key terms and to outline the rationale of why they are relevant for this work. The concepts of wildfire regimes and governance systems are set out and linked together, to explain how both are intertwined and interact as dynamic entities with physically measurable and socially constructed dimensions. Examples of recent work were introduced to summarise the state of art in the field, point out gaps in the literature, and to highlight this dissertation’s unique contribution to knowledge through the formulation of three research objectives.
In Chapter 2, the methodological framework was introduced. To this end, the overall use of discourses methods was set out, together with a reasoning on temporal and spatial choices guiding the further research.
An overview of material, methodologies and study design was provided for each research objective, to complement detailed methodology as provided in each respective Chapter. Ethical considerations were elaborated on, and followed by reflections on the limitations of this work such as existing biases due to the use of language, research scope, and deployed theory.
The first research objective was investigated in Chapter 3, aiming to advance the field theoretically by systematically retrieving contributions from studies on governance systems for wildfire regimes to date. By engaging sampled work with recent advances in the broader field of natural resources scholarship, this approach allowed to identify components within governance systems that require closer attention.
Four themes in the resulting analytical framework pointed to governance processes for actor participation, for collaboration and co-production, to the role of path-dependencies and local place-based characteristics, and
of actor adaptation and anticipation. The four themes informed and guided the remaining, empirical research conducted in this dissertation.
The second research objective was presented in Chapter 4, aiming to understand interactions across wildfire regimes and the governance system when focusing on regional and national level organizational structures. To this end, an empirical case study was developed and applied to examine the case of Italy. Qualitative data were collected across key
stakeholder sectors to identify forces at play and conflicts of interest in the status quo. Survey respondents indicated satisfaction with the governance system mostly concentrated at regional levels that allows to
account for variability in the wildfire regime at country-scale. At the same time, that responsibilities for wildfire mitigation and response were found to be fragmented across a range of decentralized institutions and network.
While promising to develop locally adapted measures, the fragmented governance system poses coordination challenges across actors, organizational levels and sectors.
The third research objective was examined in Chapter 5 with the aim to identify recurring governance opportunities for wildfire across different socio-ecological contexts and burning regimes. A targeted literature
review of recently published high-level wildfire reports almost consistently revealed five wildfire challenges. This initial framing was then tracked back to analyze the case of Cyprus through policy analysis and qualitative data collection during a three-week internship at the Department of Forests during the 2023 fire season. Findings revealed well-established processes in the governance systems, but also deficits in wildfire thinking and action to anticipate predicted trends in wildfire regimes. Considering the size of the country, which is smaller than most regions in countries like Spain, Italy or Germany, the case served to study the potential for change in acting on and thinking of wildfire in a range of flammable landscapes and at local to national levels.