Mapping and Inventory of Forest Fires in Andhra Pradesh, India: Current Status and Conservation Needs

Reddy, C. Sudhakar; Krishna, P. Hari; Anitha, K.; Joseph, Shijo

doi:10.5402/2012/380412

Cited by 13 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…A recent assessment for the state of Uttarakhand, in India, found that MODIS and VIIRS based products are only able to identify 5.64% of fire incidents due to their coarse scale (Kalaranjini et al, 2020). Within India, states in Central India (Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh) are most regularly affected by forest fires (Reddy et al, 2012), and have a high fire risk (Somashekar et al, 2009). Further, although frequency of forest fires is high in Central India, 55% of total biomass burning in the state of Madhya Pradesh was found to be in croplands, where small property sizes lead to small size of agricultural fires (e.g., Cusworth et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The difference in detection was more stark for smaller burn patches (<25 ha) where high resolution data detected 30 times more burned area (Roteta et al, 2019). Therefore, there is an urgent requirement for medium to high resolution fire mapping to better understand fire dynamics in India (Reddy et al, 2012). However, the vast majority of studies in India use MODIS based products or DMSP-OLS data for mapping fires at a coarse resolution (Chand et al, 2007;Singh et al, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evaluating methods to map burned area at 30-meter resolution in forests and agricultural areas of Central India

Chandel

Sarwat²,

Najah³

et al. 2022

Front. For. Glob. Change

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Biomass burning is a major phenomenon that plays an important role in small-scale ecological processes such as vegetation dynamics and soil erosion, and global processes such as hydrological cycles and climate change. However, global fire databases have low accuracies for burned area detection in areas with small fires, low biomass and in woodlands and open forests that characterize Central India. The present study uses higher resolution (30 meter) Landsat imagery to test accuracies for burned area detection using spectral indices (SI), machine learning (ML) algorithms and supervised classification. We find that detection of burned area by global fire product Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) is very low (<20%). Accuracies are higher for Landsat-based classification of burned area using supervised classification, random forest (RF) and Support Vector Machines (SVM). Accuracies are higher in April–May than in February–March and vary by azimuth angle on the day of image acquisition. RF produced the most consistently high classification accuracies for April (>80%), but had a tendency to misclassify less frequently available land covers; SVM had similar classification accuracies but had a tendency to overfit the model. Both lead to the potential for increasing commission errors and need to be used carefully when predicting burned area. Inclusion of SI had high relative importance in predicting burned area and reduced commission errors. Given these caveats, we recommend using ML algorithms for mapping burned area in the future, as it requires less time investment than classification and can yield consistent results. Accurate mapping of high-resolution fires is important for more accurate inputs into carbon inventories and ecological understanding of land-use dynamics and drivers.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating methods to map burned area at 30-meter resolution in forests and agricultural areas of Central India

Chandel

Sarwat²,

Najah³

et al. 2022

Front. For. Glob. Change

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“…An increase in burnt area (from 6,369 km 2 in 2009 to 8,593.5 km 2 in 2012) in Andhra Pradesh has been reported, with the Eastern Ghats and Deccan Plateau being the most affected geographical regions within the state (Reddy et al, 2012). The Eastern Ghats are spread across ~75,000 square kilometers covering the states of Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, southern Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, and have high biodiversity and many species that are endemic to the region (Sandhyarani et al, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fire alters diversity, composition, and structure of dry tropical forests in the Eastern Ghats

Neeraja

Rajendrakumar

Saneesh

et al. 2021

Ecology and Evolution

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Fire is known to have dramatic consequences on forest ecosystems around the world and on the livelihoods of forest‐dependent people. While the Eastern Ghats of India have high abundances of fire‐prone dry tropical forests, little is known about how fire influences the diversity, composition, and structure of these communities. Our study aimed to fill this knowledge gap by examining the effects of the presence and the absence of recent fire on tropical dry forest communities within the Kadiri watershed, Eastern Ghats. We sampled plots with and without evidence of recent fire in the Eswaramala Reserve Forest in 2008 and 2018. Our results indicate that even though stem density increases in the recently burned areas, species richness is lower because communities become dominated by a few species with fire resistance and tolerance traits, such as thick bark and clonal sprouting. Further, in the presence of fire, the size structure of these fire‐tolerant species shifts toward smaller‐sized, resprouting individuals. Our results demonstrate that conservation actions are needed to prevent further degradation of forests in this region and the ecosystem services they provide.

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“…The studies in India have utilised moderate resolution AWiFS and high resolution LISS III data (Kodandapani et al 2004;Somashekar et al 2008;Reddy et al 2009Reddy et al , 2012Reddy et al , 2014Sowmya andSomashekar 2010 Harikrishna andSharma et al 2012;Kodandapani 2013;Sudeesh and Reddy 2013;Saranya et al 2014;Satish and Reddy 2016). Near real-time monitoring of active fires is being carried out by National Remote Sensing Centre and Forest Survey of India using coarse resolution MODIS sensor as a part of Indian Forest Fire Response and Assessment System (NRSA 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Monitoring of fire incidences in vegetation types and Protected Areas of India: Implications on carbon emissions

et al. 2017

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Carbon emissions released from forest fires have been identified as an environmental issue in the context of global warming. This study provides data on spatial and temporal patterns of fire incidences, burnt area and carbon emissions covering natural vegetation types (forest, scrub and grassland) and Protected Areas of India. The total area affected by fire in the forest, scrub and grasslands have been estimated as 48765.45, 6540.97 and 1821.33 km 2 , respectively, in 2014 using Resourcesat-2 AWiFS data. The total CO 2 emissions from fires of these vegetation types in India were estimated to be 98.11 Tg during 2014. The highest emissions were caused by dry deciduous forests, followed by moist deciduous forests. The fire season typically occurs in February, March, April and May in different parts of India. Monthly CO 2 emissions from fires for different vegetation types have been calculated for February, March, April and May and estimated as 2.26, 33.53, 32.15 and 30.17 Tg, respectively. Protected Areas represent 11.46% of the total natural vegetation cover of India. Analysis of fire occurrences over a 10-year period with two types of sensor data, i.e., AWiFS and MODIS, have found fires in 281 (out of 614) Protected Areas of India. About 16.78 Tg of CO 2 emissions were estimated in Protected Areas in 2014. The natural vegetation types of Protected Areas have contributed for burnt area of 17.3% and CO 2 emissions of 17.1% as compared to total natural vegetation burnt area and emissions in India in 2014. 9.4% of the total vegetation in the Protected Areas was burnt in 2014. Our results suggest that Protected Areas have to be considered for strict fire management as an effective strategy for mitigating climate change and biodiversity conservation.

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Mapping and Inventory of Forest Fires in Andhra Pradesh, India: Current Status and Conservation Needs

Cited by 13 publications

References 6 publications

Evaluating methods to map burned area at 30-meter resolution in forests and agricultural areas of Central India

Evaluating methods to map burned area at 30-meter resolution in forests and agricultural areas of Central India

Fire alters diversity, composition, and structure of dry tropical forests in the Eastern Ghats

Monitoring of fire incidences in vegetation types and Protected Areas of India: Implications on carbon emissions

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