Sandrine Spaeter-Loehrer is contributing to the CNRS’s collective scientific assessment ‘Wildland Fire and Urban Interfaces’

Gaining a better understanding of fire risks at the interface between natural areas and urban zones: this is the aim of the collective scientific assessment (ESCo)“Wildland Fire and Urban Interfaces”, led by the CNRS, in which Sandrine Spaeter-Loehrer, a professor at the University of Strasbourg and a researcher at BETA, participated as a principal expert.

With the risk of fire intensifying as a result of climate change, the issue of protecting inhabited areas and their environment is becoming a major concern. In France, over 80 per cent of wildfires start near residential areas. It is against this backdrop that the CNRS has carried out a collective scientific assessment focusing on the resilience of the interfaces between natural areas and urban zones in the face of forest fires.

This assessment aims to provide an overview of the current scientific understanding of fire risks at urban-natural interfaces, their consequences and the strategies for strengthening the resilience of these areas. The aim is to provide public decision-makers and all relevant stakeholders with a multidisciplinary synthesis of this knowledge, which will inform public decision-making and debate.

As a specialist in the economics of risk and insurance, Sandrine Spaeter-Loehrer was able to contribute her expertise on issues relating to cover for major risks.

Her involvement forms part of an interdisciplinary approach that brings together perspectives from economics, geography, urban planning, environmental sciences and engineering. It also highlights the importance of economics in understanding major risks and in shaping policies for climate change mitigation and adaptation.