CFPs: New and Innovative Methods to Estimate the Impact of Fires on Vegetation and Related Carbon Fluxes

Deadline: 25-Sep-25

The European Commission is seeking applications for its New and Innovative Methods to Estimate the Impact of Fires on Vegetation and Related Carbon Fluxes.

Scope

• The areas of R&I to address the expected outcomes include:
  • Better understand and characterise the impact of wildfires on the carbon cycle and on anthropogenic emissions through land use change. This has been recognized especially in the climate community when developing process-based vegetation models for use in climate models. While a large variety of empirical or process-based vegetation models exist today, it is still unclear which type of model or degree of complexity is required to model fire adequately at regional to global scales. International collaborations, such as the Fire Model Intercomparison Project (FireMIP), have evaluated existing global fire models against benchmark data sets for present-day and historical conditions;
  • Investigate the current state of fire modelling and specifically how the interaction between droughts, fires and vegetation can be accounted for in a global monitoring system, such as the Copernicus Anthropogenic CO₂ Emissions Monitoring and Verification Support (CO2MVS). Because of the monitoring aspects of the CO2MVS, use should be made, where possible, of including observation-based data sets representing certain aspects of the fire-vegetation interaction;
  • Investigate how a better understanding of the impact of fires on vegetation can improve the estimates of fire emissions of chemical species and aerosols, and subsequently air quality products in CAMS and the fire risk forecasting in CEMS.
• Wildfires have become widespread during summer over many regions of the world, including Europe, and have major safety and larger societal impacts (air quality and health, aviation, weather, agriculture, etc). Wildfires and biomass burning are significant sources of CO2 and air pollutants in the atmosphere. Fires also change the vegetation and therefore affect the exchange of CO2 between the biosphere and the atmosphere. Current vegetation and fire models need to be improved to refine the quality of CAMS products (air quality, emissions), the Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS) supporting CEMS and forcing data sets for climate projections supporting the IPCC. Innovative methodologies should be investigated to include fire-vegetation interactions, also taking into account the impact of drought conditions in global monitoring systems such as the CO2MVS capacity, via the improvement of currently used process-based vegetation models or through empirical models. The use of relevant observation-based data sets (e.g. vegetation states, drought conditions, burnt areas) should be a key element of these methodologies. Current CLMS products should be considered, including options for potential improved specifications. The proposal should include some demonstrations of downstream applications that would benefit from these improvements.

Funding Information

• Budget (EUR) – Year 2025: 3 000 000
• Contributions: around 3000000

Expected Outcomes

• Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:
  • Enable accounting for the interaction between droughts, fires and vegetation in the CO2MVS capacity;
  • Improve the estimation of fire emissions in the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS);
  • Improve the fire risk forecasting in the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS);
  • Improve the assimilation of Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS) products in vegetation fire impact and carbon fluxes assessments.

Eligibility Criteria

• Entities eligible to participate:
  • Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from nonassociated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call/topic.
  • A ‘legal entity’ means any natural or legal person created and recognised as such under national law, EU law or international law, which has legal personality and which may, acting in its own name, exercise rights and be subject to obligations, or an entity without legal personality.
• To become a beneficiary, legal entities must be eligible for funding.
• To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the following countries:
  • the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions:
    • Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden.
  • the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States:
    • Aruba (NL), Bonaire (NL), Curação (NL), French Polynesia (FR), French Southern and Antarctic Territories (FR), Greenland (DK), New Caledonia (FR), Saba (NL), Saint Barthélemy (FR), Sint Eustatius (NL), Sint Maarten (NL), St. Pierre and Miquelon (FR), Wallis and Futuna Islands (FR).
  • countries associated to Horizon Europe;
    • Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Tunisia, Türkiye, Ukraine, United Kingdom.

For more information, visit EC.