Economic assessment of wildfires in the main Latin American and Caribbean cities: a lesson to Bogotá

Abstract

Losses of goods and services assessment caused by wildfires involve the negative impacts on not only natural, but also social and economic assets. In some countries of Latín América and the Caribbean region, methodologies of estimation of damages by wildfires have been formulated with which it is possible to calculate the loss of environmental services in the forests affected by these phenomena of natural and human origin. This document provides a description of wildfire’s main properties, the goods and services furnished by the forests, the methods used to calculate the impacts on wildfires and the goods lost in Latin America and, also, it proposes a model in which all the aforementioned elements are linked with the actions in the city of Bogotá.