Advances in Remote Sensing of Post-Fire Vegetation Recovery Monitoring - A Review

Gitas, Ioannis Z.; Mitri, George; Veraverbeke, Sander; Polychronaki, Anastasia

doi:10.5772/20571

Cited by 78 publications

(89 citation statements)

References 158 publications

(233 reference statements)

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“…Accurate post-fire vegetation regeneration monitoring is a crucial conditioning factor for post-fire land management (Ruíz-Gallardo et al, 2004). As burned areas often have limited accessibility and cover large areas, satellite remote sensing and geographic information systems are considered essential for gathering and analyzing spatially explicit information, enabling the assessment of forest recovery after fire (Chuvieco, 2009;Gitas et al, 2012). With nearly 40 years of continuous observation, free Landsat imagery has become the most widely used information source to monitor vegetation dynamics (Bolton et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Burn severity influence on post-fire vegetation cover resilience from Landsat MESMA fraction images time series in Mediterranean forest ecosystems

Fernández–Manso

Quintano

Roberts

2016

Remote Sensing of Environment

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Mediterranean ecosystems are adapted to recurrent forest fires by having regeneration mechanisms that overcome the immediate effects of fire. However, the increasing frequency of fires in most European Mediterranean countries is challenging the natural regrowth capability of these ecosystems. In this context, monitoring post-fire vegetation recovery is a priority for forest management and soil erosion control. In this work, a 13-year series (1999-2011) of Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM)/Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM +) data was used to model post-fire vegetation recovery as a function of burn severity and to quantify post-fire resilience as a measure of vegetation cover regrowth. We evaluated a large forest fire located in Spain that burned approximately 30 km 2 of Pinus pinaster Ait. in August 1998. 88 field plots of four burn severity levels (unburned, low, moderate and high) were measured in the field a year after the fire. As a variable representative of vegetation, we chose the shade normalized green vegetation fraction image (SGV) obtained by applying Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis (MESMA) to the original Landsat TM/ETM + images. The SGV values were extracted for the 88 field plots and, after performing a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), a Fisher's Least Significant Difference (LSD) test allowed us to estimate resilience of vegetation cover as the number of post-fire years exhibiting a statistically significant difference between burned and unburned areas. Next, SGV values were referenced to unburned control plots values and the vegetation recovery index (VRI) was defined. The evolution in time curve of VRI for low, moderate and highly fire affected vegetation was fit using trend models (specifically, an exponential trend for VRI in high and moderate burn severity levels; a linear trend for low burn severity level, Root Mean Square Error, RMSE = 0.18, 0.13, and 0.09, respectively). We observed that vegetation cover affected by low severity fire recovered to its original state after 7 years, and vegetation cover affected by moderate severity recovered after 13 years. Vegetation affected by high severity fire was estimated to recover after 20 years. We conclude that VRI time series based on multitemporal MESMA fractions from Landsat data can be considered a valuable indicator of the post-fire vegetation cover recovery. Its temporal evolution represented post-fire vegetation cover regrowth adequately and facilitated the estimate of vegetation cover resilience in Mediterranean forests.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Burn severity influence on post-fire vegetation cover resilience from Landsat MESMA fraction images time series in Mediterranean forest ecosystems

Fernández–Manso

Quintano

Roberts

2016

Remote Sensing of Environment

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“…Accurate information regarding the spatial distribution and level of damage (i.e., burn severity), as well as the post-fire vegetation recovery, is essential to quantify the impact of fire on the landscape, select and prioritize treatment measures, and plan and monitor restoration activities [7]. The overall effectiveness of post-fire management plans (restoration activities, etc.)…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Relationship between Burn Severity Field Data and Very High Resolution GeoEye Images: The Case of the 2011 Evros Wildfire in Greece

et al. 2016

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Abstract:Monitoring post-fire vegetation response using remotely-sensed images is a top priority for post-fire management. This study investigated the potential of very-high-resolution (VHR) GeoEye images on detecting the field-measured burn severity of a forest fire that occurred in Evros (Greece) during summer 2011. To do so, we analysed the role of topographic conditions and burn severity, as measured in the field immediately after the fire (2011) and one year after (2012) using the Composite Burn Index (CBI) for explaining the post-fire vegetation response, which is measured using VHR satellite imagery. To determine this relationship, we applied redundancy analysis (RDA), which allowed us to identify which satellite variables among VHR spectral bands and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) can better express the post-fire vegetation response. Results demonstrated that in the first year after the fire event, variations in the post-fire vegetation dynamics can be properly detected using the GeoEye VHR data. Furthermore, results showed that remotely-sensed NDVI-based variables are able to encapsulate burn severity variability over time. Our analysis showed that, in this specific case, burn severity variations are mildly affected by the topography, while the NDVI index, as inferred from VHR data, can be successfully used to monitor the short-term post-fire dynamics of the vegetation recovery.

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“…Gitas et al (2012) emphasized the need for high spatial and temporal resolution satellite images to address forest fires, considering that these data could provide the necessary information for forest and fire managers with the appropriate scale and accuracy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Burned area mapping is an important task to quantify the impact of fires on the economy and ecology, plan response, recovery and mitigation activities, as well as to create reference information for future planning (Polychronaki & Gitas 2012). Gitas et al (2012) emphasized the need for high spatial and temporal resolution satellite images to address forest fires, considering that these data could provide the necessary information for forest and fire managers with the appropriate scale and accuracy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of pixel and object-based classification for burned area mapping using SPOT-6 images

Sertel

Algancı

2015

Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk

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On 30 May 2013, a forest fire occurred in Izmir, Turkey causing damage to both forest and fruit trees within the region. In this research, pre-and post-fire SPOT-6 images obtained on 30 April 2013 and 31 May 2013 were used to identify the extent of forest fire within the region. SPOT-6 images of the study region were orthorectified and classified using pixel and object-based classification (OBC) algorithms to accurately delineate the boundaries of burned areas. The present results show that for OBC using only normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) thresholds is not sufficient enough to map the burn scars; however, creating a new and simple rule set that included mean brightness values of near infrared and red channels in addition to mean NDVI values of segments considerably improved the accuracy of classification. According to the accuracy assessment results, the burned area was mapped with a 0.9322 kappa value in OBC, while a 0.7433 kappa value was observed in pixel-based classification. Lastly, classification results were integrated with the forest management map to determine the effected forest types after the fire to be used by the National Forest Directorate for their operational activities to effectively manage the fire, response and recovery processes.

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Advances in Remote Sensing of Post-Fire Vegetation Recovery Monitoring - A Review

Cited by 78 publications

References 158 publications

Burn severity influence on post-fire vegetation cover resilience from Landsat MESMA fraction images time series in Mediterranean forest ecosystems

Burn severity influence on post-fire vegetation cover resilience from Landsat MESMA fraction images time series in Mediterranean forest ecosystems

Exploring the Relationship between Burn Severity Field Data and Very High Resolution GeoEye Images: The Case of the 2011 Evros Wildfire in Greece

Comparison of pixel and object-based classification for burned area mapping using SPOT-6 images

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