Defining and mapping the wildland-urban interface of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands:2010 Distribution and Implications

Abstract

The wildland-urban interface (WUI) is the area where houses are in or near wildland vegetation and where many environmental problems concentrate. Consistent WUI maps across all U.S. lands and territories are therefore needed for effective environmental management and policy efforts. However, such maps are lacking for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Here, we mapped the WUI in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands for 2010 using the same mapping approach as in the conterminous United States and integrating population census, land cover, and land ownership information. We found that the WUI in these territories is widespread, encompassing 65.3 percent of the land, 61.5 percent of the houses, and 63.6 percent of the people in Puerto Rico, and 52.3 percent of the land, 93.4 percent of the houses, and 91.2 percent of the people in the U.S. Virgin Islands. We summarized the WUI by municipality (for Puerto Rico) and district (for U.S. Virgin Islands), compared the amount of WUI in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to that of the conterminous United States, and discussed four WUI cases of local environmental relevance related to urbanization, hydrology, and wildfire. The dataset generated here covers an important gap in WUI data for the United States, providing valuable information for understanding patterns in human land use and guiding environmental management and policy.

Citation

Martinuzzi, Sebastián; Ramos González, Olga M.; Helmers, David P.; Heartsill-Scalley, Tamara; Radeloff, Volker C.; Quiñones, Maya. 2025. Defining and mapping the wildland-urban interface of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands: 2010 distribution and implications. Gen. Tech. Rep. IITF-56. San Juan, PR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, International Institute of Tropical Forestry. 127 p. https://doi.org/10.2737/IITF-GTR-56.