The professor analyzes the effects of forest fires on the environment and the degree to which they affect the climate crisis Dynamic Tectonics of Applied Geology & Natural Disaster Management of EKPA and president of OASP, Efthymis Lekkas.

“Recently, at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, it has been calculated that an increase of 0.5 degrees in especially sensitive areas such as the Mediterranean, increases by 30 days the duration of high temperatures and by 5 days of heatwave. A forest fire increases the risk of flooding by 7 times, the risk of soil erosion by 4 times and the risk of landslides by 3 times, all of which contribute to the advance of desertification and of course to the further acceleration of the temperature rise. In other words, a vicious circle, the speed of which is constantly increasing”, he says characteristically.

In detail, Mr. Lekkas emphasizes:

“It is obvious that the social and economic effects of the recent fires in the Greek area are very important.

But what is difficult to assess are the effects on the environmental level, effects that may leave their mark forever, thus contributing to the self-feeding feedback of an accelerated process, which constitutes the climate crisis, which we are clearly experiencing, not only here in our country, but globally.

The total effects of forest fires are matched with effects on fauna, flora, air, soil, subsoil, water element, underground and surface water, that is, all the main systems that constitute the concept of “Environment”.

Each of the above systems, which include a large number of subsystems, is destroyed or significantly degraded, a process that has been analyzed in great detail by the respective scientific disciplines, such as Geology, Climatology, Forestry, Biology, Agriculture, Physics, Chemistry, Environmental Engineering and others, sciences that have made huge strides forward, especially on Environmental management issues, at a pre-catastrophic, co-catastrophic and post-catastrophic level.

Forest management, air pollution, water pollution, forecasting forest fire progression, soil alterations, landslide risk, flood phenomena, erosion control, infrastructure and critical network redesign, forest regeneration process, the qualitative and quantitative degradation of the water element, are just some of the topics that make up the scientific fields, which are investigated with the most modern technology available by Greek scientists.

Recently, at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, it has been calculated that an increase of 0.5 degrees in especially sensitive areas such as the Mediterranean, increases by 30 days the duration of high temperatures and by 5 days of heatwave. A forest fire increases the risk of flooding by 7 times, the risk of soil erosion by 4 times and the risk of landslides by 3 times, all of which contribute to the advance of desertification and of course to the further acceleration of the temperature increase. In other words, a vicious circle, the speed of which is constantly increasing.”