Burned Area Evidence for Process-Sensitive Post-Fire Hydrogeomorphic Monitoring Across Mediterranean and Iberian–Atlantic Regions

In operational terms, post-fire landscapes require monitoring priorities that reflect hydrogeomorphic susceptibility rather than burned extent alone. This study tests whether European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) burned area evidence, combined with open terrain, rainfall, drainage, soil, land cover, and settlement context data, can be translated into source-to-output traceable monitoring priority units across Mediterranean and Iberian–Atlantic regions. The backbone integrates Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) driver structuring, cell criticality score (CCS) screening from the CCS-V0 conventional weighted linear GIS baseline to CCS-V5 staged refinement, upper-quartile (Q75) hotspot topology, multi-criteria decision analysis/cost penalty (MCDA/COST-PEN) ranking, and quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO)-ready selected/reserve organization. Across Vesuvius–Campania, Attica, Cyprus, Portugal, and Spain, the screening outputs show procedural portability without implying geomorphological equivalence, field-confirmed hydrogeomorphic damage, or cross-theater hazard comparability: hotspot geometry, dominance, fragmentation, and candidate composition remain theater-dependent. In Vesuvius–Campania, CCS-V1 rainfall conditioning reduced Q75 hotspot clusters from 58 to 18 and increased the dominant cluster ratio from 23.1% to 63.07%; in Portugal, CCS-V5 contracted hotspot support from 17,240 to 862 cells while increasing dominance to 66.13%. The final QUBO-ready layer retained 11 of 32 candidate units. The contribution links (i) EFFIS/Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) source sector traceability and valid support construction, (ii) DEMATEL-informed CCS refinement and hotspot topology interpretation, (iii) role-based transfer testing across non-equivalent theaters, and (iv) QUBO-ready prioritization for verification-oriented post-fire monitoring.