scholarly journals A Practical Method for High-Resolution Burned Area Monitoring Using Sentinel-2 and VIIRS

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 1608
Author(s):  
Miguel M. Pinto ◽  
Ricardo M. Trigo ◽  
Isabel F. Trigo ◽  
Carlos C. DaCamara

Mapping burned areas using satellite imagery has become a subject of extensive research over the past decades. The availability of high-resolution satellite data allows burned area maps to be produced with great detail. However, their increasing spatial resolution is usually not matched by a similar increase in the temporal domain. Moreover, high-resolution data can be a computational challenge. Existing methods usually require downloading and processing massive volumes of data in order to produce the resulting maps. In this work we propose a method to make this procedure fast and yet accurate by leveraging the use of a coarse resolution burned area product, the computation capabilities of Google Earth Engine to pre-process and download Sentinel-2 10-m resolution data, and a deep learning model trained to map the multispectral satellite data into the burned area maps. For a 1500 ha fire our method can generate a 10-m resolution map in about 5 min, using a computer with an 8-core processor and 8 GB of RAM. An analysis of six important case studies located in Portugal, southern France and Greece shows the detailed computation time for each process and how the resulting maps compare to the input satellite data as well as to independent reference maps produced by Copernicus Emergency Management System. We also analyze the feature importance of each input band to the final burned area map, giving further insight about the differences among these events.

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luís Pádua ◽  
Nathalie Guimarães ◽  
Telmo Adão ◽  
António Sousa ◽  
Emanuel Peres ◽  
...  

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become popular in recent years and are now used in a wide variety of applications. This is the logical result of certain technological developments that occurred over the last two decades, allowing UAVs to be equipped with different types of sensors that can provide high-resolution data at relatively low prices. However, despite the success and extraordinary results achieved by the use of UAVs, traditional remote sensing platforms such as satellites continue to develop as well. Nowadays, satellites use sophisticated sensors providing data with increasingly improving spatial, temporal and radiometric resolutions. This is the case for the Sentinel-2 observation mission from the Copernicus Programme, which systematically acquires optical imagery at high spatial resolutions, with a revisiting period of five days. It therefore makes sense to think that, in some applications, satellite data may be used instead of UAV data, with all the associated benefits (extended coverage without the need to visit the area). In this study, Sentinel-2 time series data performances were evaluated in comparison with high-resolution UAV-based data, in an area affected by a fire, in 2017. Given the 10-m resolution of Sentinel-2 images, different spatial resolutions of the UAV-based data (0.25, 5 and 10 m) were used and compared to determine their similarities. The achieved results demonstrate the effectiveness of satellite data for post-fire monitoring, even at a local scale, as more cost-effective than UAV data. The Sentinel-2 results present a similar behavior to the UAV-based data for assessing burned areas.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (19) ◽  
pp. 2191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Encarni Medina-Lopez ◽  
Leonardo Ureña-Fuentes

The aim of this work is to obtain high-resolution values of sea surface salinity (SSS) and temperature (SST) in the global ocean by using raw satellite data (i.e., without any band data pre-processing or atmospheric correction). Sentinel-2 Level 1-C Top of Atmosphere (TOA) reflectance data is used to obtain accurate SSS and SST information. A deep neural network is built to link the band information with in situ data from different buoys, vessels, drifters, and other platforms around the world. The neural network used in this paper includes shortcuts, providing an improved performance compared with the equivalent feed-forward architecture. The in situ information used as input for the network has been obtained from the Copernicus Marine In situ Service. Sentinel-2 platform-centred band data has been processed using Google Earth Engine in areas of 100 m × 100 m. Accurate salinity values are estimated for the first time independently of temperature. Salinity results rely only on direct satellite observations, although it presented a clear dependency on temperature ranges. Results show the neural network has good interpolation and extrapolation capabilities. Test results present correlation coefficients of 82 % and 84 % for salinity and temperature, respectively. The most common error for both SST and SSS is 0.4 ∘ C and 0 . 4 PSU. The sensitivity analysis shows that outliers are present in areas where the number of observations is very low. The network is finally applied over a complete Sentinel-2 tile, presenting sensible patterns for river-sea interaction, as well as seasonal variations. The methodology presented here is relevant for detailed coastal and oceanographic applications, reducing the time for data pre-processing, and it is applicable to a wide range of satellites, as the information is directly obtained from TOA data.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Filipponi

Satellite data play a major role in supporting knowledge about fire severity by delivering rapid information to map fire-damaged areas in a precise and prompt way. The high availability of free medium-high spatial resolution optical satellite data, offered by the Copernicus Programme, has enabled the development of more detailed post-fire mapping. This research study deals with the exploitation of Sentinel-2 time series to map burned areas, taking advantages from the high revisit frequency and improved spatial and spectral resolution of the MSI optical sensor. A novel procedure is here presented to produce medium-high spatial resolution burned area mapping using dense Sentinel-2 time series with no a priori knowledge about wildfire occurrence or burned areas spatial distribution. The proposed methodology is founded on a threshold-based classification based on empirical observations that discovers wildfire fingerprints on vegetation cover by means of an abrupt change detection procedure. Effectiveness of the procedure in mapping medium-high spatial resolution burned areas at the national level was demonstrated for a case study on the 2017 Italy wildfires. Thematic maps generated under the Copernicus Emergency Management Service were used as reference products to assess the accuracy of the results. Multitemporal series of three different spectral indices, describing wildfire disturbance, were used to identify burned areas and compared to identify their performances in terms of spectral separability. Result showed a total burned area for the Italian country in the year 2017 of around 1400 km2, with the proposed methodology generating a commission error of around 25% and an omission error of around 40%. Results demonstrate how the proposed procedure allows for the medium-high resolution mapping of burned areas, offering a benchmark for the development of new operational downstreaming services at the national level based on Copernicus data for the systematic monitoring of wildfires.


2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (8) ◽  
pp. 2514-2533 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard W. Reynolds ◽  
Dudley B. Chelton ◽  
Jonah Roberts-Jones ◽  
Matthew J. Martin ◽  
Dimitris Menemenlis ◽  
...  

Abstract Considerable effort is presently being devoted to producing high-resolution sea surface temperature (SST) analyses with a goal of spatial grid resolutions as low as 1 km. Because grid resolution is not the same as feature resolution, a method is needed to objectively determine the resolution capability and accuracy of SST analysis products. Ocean model SST fields are used in this study as simulated “true” SST data and subsampled based on actual infrared and microwave satellite data coverage. The subsampled data are used to simulate sampling errors due to missing data. Two different SST analyses are considered and run using both the full and the subsampled model SST fields, with and without additional noise. The results are compared as a function of spatial scales of variability using wavenumber auto- and cross-spectral analysis. The spectral variance at high wavenumbers (smallest wavelengths) is shown to be attenuated relative to the true SST because of smoothing that is inherent to both analysis procedures. Comparisons of the two analyses (both having grid sizes of roughly ) show important differences. One analysis tends to reproduce small-scale features more accurately when the high-resolution data coverage is good but produces more spurious small-scale noise when the high-resolution data coverage is poor. Analysis procedures can thus generate small-scale features with and without data, but the small-scale features in an SST analysis may be just noise when high-resolution data are sparse. Users must therefore be skeptical of high-resolution SST products, especially in regions where high-resolution (~5 km) infrared satellite data are limited because of cloud cover.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 5138
Author(s):  
Seyd Teymoor Seydi ◽  
Mahdi Hasanlou ◽  
Jocelyn Chanussot

Wildfires are one of the most destructive natural disasters that can affect our environment, with significant effects also on wildlife. Recently, climate change and human activities have resulted in higher frequencies of wildfires throughout the world. Timely and accurate detection of the burned areas can help to make decisions for their management. Remote sensing satellite imagery can have a key role in mapping burned areas due to its wide coverage, high-resolution data collection, and low capture times. However, although many studies have reported on burned area mapping based on remote sensing imagery in recent decades, accurate burned area mapping remains a major challenge due to the complexity of the background and the diversity of the burned areas. This paper presents a novel framework for burned area mapping based on Deep Siamese Morphological Neural Network (DSMNN-Net) and heterogeneous datasets. The DSMNN-Net framework is based on change detection through proposing a pre/post-fire method that is compatible with heterogeneous remote sensing datasets. The proposed network combines multiscale convolution layers and morphological layers (erosion and dilation) to generate deep features. To evaluate the performance of the method proposed here, two case study areas in Australian forests were selected. The framework used can better detect burned areas compared to other state-of-the-art burned area mapping procedures, with a performance of >98% for overall accuracy index, and a kappa coefficient of >0.9, using multispectral Sentinel-2 and hyperspectral PRISMA image datasets. The analyses of the two datasets illustrate that the DSMNN-Net is sufficiently valid and robust for burned area mapping, and especially for complex areas.


2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto S Azzoni ◽  
Davide Fugazza ◽  
Andrea Zerboni ◽  
Antonella Senese ◽  
Carlo D’Agata ◽  
...  

Over the last decades, the expansion of supraglacial debris on worldwide mountain glaciers has been reported. Nevertheless, works dealing with the detection and mapping of supraglacial debris and detailed analyses aimed at identifying the temporal and spatial trends affecting glacier debris cover are still limited. In this study, we used different remote sensing sources to detect and map the supraglacial debris cover, to analyze its evolution, and to assess the potential of different remote-sensed image data. We performed our analyses on the glaciers of Ortles-Cevedale Group (Stelvio Park, Italy), one of the most representative glacierized sectors of the European Alps. High-resolution airborne orthophotos (pixel size 0.5 m × 0.5 m) acquired during the summer season in the years 2003, 2007, and 2012 permitted to map in detail, with an error lower than ±5%, the supraglacial debris cover through a maximum likelihood classification. Our findings suggest that over the period 2003–2012, supraglacial debris cover increased from 16.7% to 30.1% of the total glacier area. On Forni Glacier we extended these quantification thanks to the availability of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) orthophotos from 2014 and 2015 (pixel size 0.15 m × 0.15 m): this detailed analysis permitted to confirm debris is increasing on the glacier melting surface (+20.4%) and confirms the requirement of high-resolution data in debris mapping on Alpine glaciers. Finally, we also checked the suitability of medium-resolution Landsat ETM+ data and Sentinel 2 data to map debris in a typical Alpine glaciation scenario where small ice bodies (<0.5 km2) are the majority. The results we obtained suggest that medium-resolution data are not suitable for a detailed description and evaluation of supraglacial debris cover in the Alpine scenario, nevertheless Sentinel 2 proved to be appropriate for a preliminary mapping of the main debris features.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 220
Author(s):  
Seyd Teymoor Seydi ◽  
Mehdi Akhoondzadeh ◽  
Meisam Amani ◽  
Sahel Mahdavi

Wildfires are major natural disasters negatively affecting human safety, natural ecosystems, and wildlife. Timely and accurate estimation of wildfire burn areas is particularly important for post-fire management and decision making. In this regard, Remote Sensing (RS) images are great resources due to their wide coverage, high spatial and temporal resolution, and low cost. In this study, Australian areas affected by wildfire were estimated using Sentinel-2 imagery and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) products within the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud computing platform. To this end, a framework based on change analysis was implemented in two main phases: (1) producing the binary map of burned areas (i.e., burned vs. unburned); (2) estimating burned areas of different Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) types. The first phase was implemented in five main steps: (i) preprocessing, (ii) spectral and spatial feature extraction for pre-fire and post-fire analyses; (iii) prediction of burned areas based on a change detection by differencing the pre-fire and post-fire datasets; (iv) feature selection; and (v) binary mapping of burned areas based on the selected features by the classifiers. The second phase was defining the types of LULC classes over the burned areas using the global MODIS land cover product (MCD12Q1). Based on the test datasets, the proposed framework showed high potential in detecting burned areas with an overall accuracy (OA) and kappa coefficient (KC) of 91.02% and 0.82, respectively. It was also observed that the greatest burned area among different LULC classes was related to evergreen needle leaf forests with burning rate of over 25 (%). Finally, the results of this study were in good agreement with the Landsat burned products.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1509
Author(s):  
Xikun Hu ◽  
Yifang Ban ◽  
Andrea Nascetti

Accurate burned area information is needed to assess the impacts of wildfires on people, communities, and natural ecosystems. Various burned area detection methods have been developed using satellite remote sensing measurements with wide coverage and frequent revisits. Our study aims to expound on the capability of deep learning (DL) models for automatically mapping burned areas from uni-temporal multispectral imagery. Specifically, several semantic segmentation network architectures, i.e., U-Net, HRNet, Fast-SCNN, and DeepLabv3+, and machine learning (ML) algorithms were applied to Sentinel-2 imagery and Landsat-8 imagery in three wildfire sites in two different local climate zones. The validation results show that the DL algorithms outperform the ML methods in two of the three cases with the compact burned scars, while ML methods seem to be more suitable for mapping dispersed burn in boreal forests. Using Sentinel-2 images, U-Net and HRNet exhibit comparatively identical performance with higher kappa (around 0.9) in one heterogeneous Mediterranean fire site in Greece; Fast-SCNN performs better than others with kappa over 0.79 in one compact boreal forest fire with various burn severity in Sweden. Furthermore, directly transferring the trained models to corresponding Landsat-8 data, HRNet dominates in the three test sites among DL models and can preserve the high accuracy. The results demonstrated that DL models can make full use of contextual information and capture spatial details in multiple scales from fire-sensitive spectral bands to map burned areas. Using only a post-fire image, the DL methods not only provide automatic, accurate, and bias-free large-scale mapping option with cross-sensor applicability, but also have potential to be used for onboard processing in the next Earth observation satellites.


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