(ANSA) - TRIESTE, 04 AGO - More than 3700 hectares of wooded areas burned with a volume of 194 thousand cubic meters of biomass lost. This is the first estimate of the damage caused by fires on the Italian and Slovenian Karst in recent weeks prepared by researchers at the University of Udine. The study was carried out by the Environment and Territory group of the Department of Agri-food, Environmental and Animal Sciences.

The estimate was obtained by using satellite data provided by Sentinel-2, a mission of the European Space Agency under the European Earth observation program Copernicus. The area affected by the fire covers an area of just over 4,000 hectares, mostly in Slovenia (3480 hectares). The forest area affected was 3,693 hectares, 92 percent of the total. The municipality most affected is Miren-Kostanjevica, Slovenia, with 2,750 hectares, while on the Italian side is Doberdò del Lago (406).

The forest stock of the areas affected by the fires amounted to 614 thousand cubic meters before the event; the fire destroyed 32 percent, or 194 thousand cubic meters. However, the fires do not appear to have completely destroyed the vegetation.

"Thanks to the multispectral images provided by satellites," explains Luca Cadez, PhD candidate in Environment and Life, "it was possible to estimate the burned area and the intensity of the damage. This then allowed us to estimate the extent of the damage in terms of the woody volume burned." (ANSA).