scholarly journals Generating annual estimates of forest fire disturbance in Canada: the National Burned Area Composite

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (10) ◽  
pp. 878 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. Hall ◽  
R. S. Skakun ◽  
J. M. Metsaranta ◽  
R. Landry ◽  
R.H. Fraser ◽  
...  

Determining burned area in Canada across fire management agencies is challenging because of different mapping scales and methods. The inconsistent removal of unburned islands and water features from within burned polygon perimeters further complicates the problem. To improve the determination of burned area, the Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation and the Canadian Forest Service developed the National Burned Area Composite (NBAC). The primary data sources for this tool are an automated system to derive fire polygons from 30-m Landsat imagery (Multi-Acquisition Fire Mapping System) and high-quality agency polygons delineated from imagery with spatial resolution ≤30m. For fires not mapped by these sources, the Hotspot and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index Differencing Synergy method was used with 250–1000-m satellite data. From 2004 to 2016, the National Burned Area Composite reported an average of 2.26 Mha burned annually, with considerable interannual variability. Independent assessment of Multi-Acquisition Fire Mapping System polygons achieved an average accuracy of 96% relative to burned-area data with high spatial resolution. Confidence intervals for national area burned statistics averaged±4.3%, suggesting that NBAC contributes relatively little uncertainty to current estimates of the carbon balance of Canada’s forests.

2018 ◽  
Vol 156 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Palchowdhuri ◽  
R. Valcarce-Diñeiro ◽  
P. King ◽  
M. Sanabria-Soto

AbstractRemote sensing (RS) offers an efficient and reliable means to map features on Earth. Crop type mapping using RS at various temporal and spatial resolutions plays an important role spanning from environmental to economical. The main objective of the current study was to evaluate the significance of optical data in a multi-temporal crop type classification-based on very high spatial resolution and high spatial resolution imagery. With this aim, three images from WorldView-3 and Sentinel-2 were acquired over Coalville (UK) between April and July 2016. Three vegetation indices (VIs); the normalized difference vegetation index, the green normalized difference vegetation index and soil adjusted vegetation index were generated using red, green and near-infrared spectral bands; then a supervised classification was performed using ground reference data collected from field surveys, Random forest (RF) and decision tree (DT) classification algorithms. Accuracy assessment was undertaken by comparing the classified output with the reference data. An overall accuracy of 91% and κ coefficient of 0·90 were estimated using the combination of RF and DT classification algorithms. Therefore, it can be concluded that integrating very high- and high-resolution imagery with different VIs can be implemented effectively to produce large-scale crop maps even with a limited temporal-dataset.


Drones ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sathishkumar Samiappan ◽  
Lee Hathcock ◽  
Gray Turnage ◽  
Cary McCraine ◽  
Jonathan Pitchford ◽  
...  

Wildfires can be beneficial for native vegetation. However, wildfires can impact property values, human safety, and ecosystem function. Resource managers require safe, easy to use, timely, and cost-effective methods for quantifying wildfire damage and regeneration. In this work, we demonstrate an approach using an unmanned aerial system (UAS) equipped with a MicaSense RedEdge multispectral sensor to classify and estimate wildfire damage in a coastal marsh. We collected approximately 7.2 km2 of five-band multispectral imagery after a wildfire event in February 2016, which was used to create a photogrammetry-based digital surface model (DSM) and orthomosaic for object-based classification analysis. Airborne light detection and ranging data were used to validate the accuracy of the DSM. Four-band airborne imagery from pre- and post-fire were used to estimate pre-fire health, post-fire damage, and track the vegetation recovery process. Immediate and long-term post-fire classifications, area, and volume of burned regions were produced to track the revegetation progress. The UAS-based classification produced from normalized difference vegetation index and DSM was compared to the Landsat-based Burned Area Reflectance Classification. Experimental results show the potential of using UAS and the presented approach compared to satellite-based mapping in terms of classification accuracies, turnaround time, and spatial and temporal resolutions.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Hölbling ◽  
Barbara Friedl ◽  
Clemens Eisank

Abstract Earth observation (EO) data are very useful for the detection of landslides after triggering events, especially if they occur in remote and hardly accessible terrain. To fully exploit the potential of the wide range of existing remote sensing data, innovative and reliable landslide (change) detection methods are needed. Recently, object-based image analysis (OBIA) has been employed for EO-based landslide (change) mapping. The proposed object-based approach has been tested for a sub-area of the Baichi catchment in northern Taiwan. The focus is on the mapping of landslides and debris flows/sediment transport areas caused by the Typhoons Aere in 2004 and Matsa in 2005. For both events, pre- and post-disaster optical satellite images (SPOT-5 with 2.5 m spatial resolution) were analysed. A Digital Elevation Model (DEM) with 5 m spatial resolution and its derived products, i.e., slope and curvature, were additionally integrated in the analysis to support the semi-automated object-based landslide mapping. Changes were identified by comparing the normalised values of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the Green Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (GNDVI) of segmentation-derived image objects between pre- and post-event images and attributed to landslide classes.


Agronomy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 940
Author(s):  
Rocío Ballesteros ◽  
Miguel A. Moreno ◽  
Fellype Barroso ◽  
Laura González-Gómez ◽  
José F. Ortega

The availability of a great amount of remote sensing data for precision agriculture purposes has set the question of which resolution and indices, derived from satellites or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), offer the most accurate results to characterize vegetation. This study focused on assessing, comparing, and discussing the performances and limitations of satellite and UAV-based imagery in terms of canopy development, i.e., the leaf area index (LAI), and yield, i.e., the dry aboveground biomass (DAGB), for maize. Three commercial maize fields were studied over four seasons to obtain the LAI and DAGB. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and visible atmospherically resistant index (VARI) from satellite platforms (Landsat 5TM, 7 ETM+, 8OLI, and Sentinel 2A MSI) and the VARI and green canopy cover (GCC) from UAV imagery were compared. The remote sensing predictors in addition to the growing degree days (GDD) were assessed to estimate the LAI and DAGB using multilinear regression models (MRMs). For LAI estimation, better adjustments were obtained when predictors from the UAV platform were considered. The DAGB estimation revealed similar adjustments for both platforms, although the Landsat imagery offered slightly better adjustments. The results obtained in this study demonstrate the advantage of remote sensing platforms as a useful tool to estimate essential agronomic features.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinxiu Liu

<p>Fire is recognized as an important land surface disturbance, as it influences terrestrial carbon cycle, climate and biodiversity. Accurate and efficient mapping of burned area is beneficial for social and environmental applications. Remote sensing plays a key role in detecting burned areas and active fires from reginal to global scales. Due to the free access to the Landsat archive, studies using dense time series of Landsat imagery for burned area mapping are appearing and increasing. However, the performance of Landsat time series when using different indices for burned area mapping has not been assessed. In this study, the objective was to identify which indices can detect burned area better when using Landsat time series in savanna area of southern Burkina Faso. We selected Burned Area Index (BAI), Normalized Burned Ratio (NBR), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Global Environmental Monitoring Index (GEMI) for comparison as they are commonly used indices for burned area detection. The algorithm was based on breakpoint identification and burned pixel detection using harmonic model fitting with different indices Landsat time series. It was tested in savanna area in southern Burkina Faso over 16 years with 281 Landsat images ranging from October 2000 to April 2016.The same reference data was used to evaluate the performance of burned area detection with different indices Landsat time series. The result demonstrated that BAI was the most accurate in burned area detection from Landsat time series, followed by NBR, GEMI and NDVI.</p>


ARCTIC ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gita J. Laidler ◽  
Paul M. Treitz ◽  
David M. Atkinson

Arctic tundra environments are thought to be particularly sensitive to changes in climate, whereby alterations in ecosystem functioning are likely to be expressed through shifts in vegetation phenology, species composition, and net ecosystem productivity (NEP). Remote sensing has shown potential as a tool to quantify and monitor biophysical variables over space and through time. This study explores the relationship between the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and percent-vegetation cover in a tundra environment, where variations in soil moisture, exposed soil, and gravel till have significant influence on spectral response, and hence, on the characterization of vegetation communities. IKONOS multispectral data (4 m spatial resolution) and Landsat 7 ETM+ data (30 m spatial resolution) were collected for a study area in the Lord Lindsay River watershed on Boothia Peninsula, Nunavut. In conjunction with image acquisition, percent cover data were collected for twelve 100 m × 100 m study plots to determine vegetation community composition. Strong correlations were found for NDVI values calculated with surface and satellite sensors, across the sample plots. In addition, results suggest that percent cover is highly correlated with the NDVI, thereby indicating strong potential for modeling percent cover variations over the region. These percent cover variations are closely related to moisture regime, particularly in areas of high moisture (e.g., water-tracks). These results are important given that improved mapping of Arctic vegetation and associated biophysical variables is needed to monitor environmental change.


CERNE ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 413-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduarda Martiniano de Oliveira Silveira ◽  
José Márcio de Mello ◽  
Fausto Weimar Acerbi Júnior ◽  
Aliny Aparecida dos Reis ◽  
Kieran Daniel Withey ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Assuming a relationship between landscape heterogeneity and measures of spatial dependence by using remotely sensed data, the aim of this work was to evaluate the potential of semivariogram parameters, derived from satellite images with different spatial resolutions, to characterize landscape spatial heterogeneity of forested and human modified areas. The NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) was generated in an area of Brazilian amazon tropical forest (1,000 km²). We selected samples (1 x 1 km) from forested and human modified areas distributed throughout the study area, to generate the semivariogram and extract the sill (σ²-overall spatial variability of the surface property) and range (φ-the length scale of the spatial structures of objects) parameters. The analysis revealed that image spatial resolution influenced the sill and range parameters. The average sill and range values increase from forested to human modified areas and the greatest between-class variation was found for LANDSAT 8 imagery, indicating that this image spatial resolution is the most appropriate for deriving sill and range parameters with the intention of describing landscape spatial heterogeneity. By combining remote sensing and geostatistical techniques, we have shown that the sill and range parameters of semivariograms derived from NDVI images are a simple indicator of landscape heterogeneity and can be used to provide landscape heterogeneity maps to enable researchers to design appropriate sampling regimes. In the future, more applications combining remote sensing and geostatistical features should be further investigated and developed, such as change detection and image classification using object-based image analysis (OBIA) approaches.


2018 ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
V.X. Macas-Espinosa ◽  
K.F. López-Escobar

<p>The objective of this study is to apply geographic information systems and remote sensing techniques to map potential areas for groundwater exploration in the Puyango Catamayo hydrographic demarcation, based on free input data. The research’s primary data are a digital elevation model, satellite images, regional geology and rainfall. From the methodological point of view, Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis is applied, using an Analytic Hierarchy Process, which takes as thematic layers the  rock permeability, the rainfall, the drainage density,  the terrain slope, and the normalized difference vegetation index. Thus,  the Groundwater Potential Index is obtained, which is used to map potential areas for groundwater exploration. The resulting map is compared with the existing data of the water point inventory, generated by the Ecuador’s National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology. Data validation by this method shows that 30% of the water points are located in areas not suitable for groundwater exploration, while 70% are in favorable areas.</p>


Author(s):  
H. Tonbul ◽  
T. Kavzoglu ◽  
S. Kaya

Satellite based remote sensing technologies and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) present operable and cost-effective solutions for mapping fires and observing post-fire regeneration. Mersin-Gülnar wildfire, which occurred in August 2008 in Turkey, selected as study site. The fire was devastating and continued 55 days. According to Turkish General Directorate of Forestry reports, it caused two deaths and left hundreds of people homeless. The aim of this study is to determine the fire severity and monitor vegetation recovery with using multitemporal spectral indices together with topographical factors. Pre-fire and post-fire Landsat ETM+ images were obtained to assess the related fire severity with using the widely-used differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) algorithm. Also, the Normalized Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI) were used to determine vegetation regeneration dynamics for a period of six consecutive years. In addition, aspect image derived from Aster Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM) were used to determine vegetation regeneration regime of the study area. Results showed that 5388 ha of area burned with moderate to high severity damage. As expected, NDVI and SAVI values distinctly declined post-fire and then began to increase in the coming years. Mean NDVI value of burned area changed from 0.48 to 0.17 due to wildfire, whilst mean SAVI value changed from 0.61 to 0.26. Re-growth rates calculated for NDVI and SAVI 57% and 63% respectively, six years after the fire. Moreover, NDVI and SAVI were estimated six consecutive year period by taking into consideration east, south, north and west facing slopes. Analysis showed that north-facing and east-facing slopes have higher regeneration rates in compared to other aspects. This study serves as a window to an understanding of the process of fire severity and vegetation regeneration that is vital in wildfire management systems.


Author(s):  
A. B. Baloloy ◽  
A. C. Blanco ◽  
B. S. Gana ◽  
R. C. Sta. Ana ◽  
L. C. Olalia

The Philippines has a booming sugarcane industry contributing about PHP 70 billion annually to the local economy through raw sugar, molasses and bioethanol production (SRA, 2012). Sugarcane planters adapt different farm practices in cultivating sugarcane, one of which is cane burning to eliminate unwanted plant material and facilitate easier harvest. Information on burned sugarcane extent is significant in yield estimation models to calculate total sugar lost during harvest. Pre-harvest burning can lessen sucrose by 2.7% - 5% of the potential yield (Gomez, et al 2006; Hiranyavasit, 2016). This study employs a method for detecting burn sugarcane area and determining burn severity through Differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) using Landsat 8 Images acquired during the late milling season in Tarlac, Philippines. Total burned area was computed per burn severity based on pre-fire and post-fire images. Results show that 75.38% of the total sugarcane fields in Tarlac were burned with post-fire regrowth; 16.61% were recently burned; and only 8.01% were unburned. The monthly dNBR for February to March generated the largest area with low severity burn (1,436 ha) and high severity burn (31.14 ha) due to pre-harvest burning. Post-fire regrowth is highest in April to May when previously burned areas were already replanted with sugarcane. The maximum dNBR of the entire late milling season (February to May) recorded larger extent of areas with high and low post-fire regrowth compared to areas with low, moderate and high burn severity. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was used to analyse vegetation dynamics between the burn severity classes. Significant positive correlation, rho = 0.99, was observed between dNBR and dNDVI at 5% level (p = 0.004). An accuracy of 89.03% was calculated for the Landsat-derived NBR validated using actual mill data for crop year 2015-2016.


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