Mapping Wildfires Using Sentinel 2 MSI and Landsat 8 Imagery: Spatial Data Generation for Forestry

Abstract

Forests host diverse ecosystems that involve various habitats. There are many complex interactions between living and non-living things in most forests. It is important to conduct observations and assessments in large forestlands where short-term and long-term direct or indirect negative impacts may occur so that they are known and measured. Scientific studies have been carried out by utilizing the various data offered by today's advanced technology with satellite imagery becoming more readily available. In this study, differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR=∆NBR) and satellite images with two different resolutions were used to generate pre-and post-wildfire spatial data. An area affected by wildfire in the Mediterranean Region of Turkey was selected as the study area. Google Earth Engine (GEE) and Geographic Information System (GIS) were used to delineate areas affected by wildfire using Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8 multispectral imagery. In order to compare the differences between the two sets of imagery, burn severity levels (low, medium-low, medium-high, and highest) and the effect of water surface were considered. For the most impacted burnt lands, areas detected with Sentinel 2 and Landsat 8 are 31.90% and 32.59%, respectively. However, burn severity classes were also observed in water surface areas likely due to interactions between land cover and water reflectance. The overall results support the use of both satellite platforms and the dNBR for burn severity mapping in mediumand large-scale post-wildfire studies.

The Importance of Earth Observation for Monitoring Cultural Heritage Sites Affected by Fire Events: The Case Study of Arakapas, Cyprus Using Sentinel 2 Data

“…Earth observation and remote sensing are a valuable and effective tool which includes a large number of systems that focus on using data from spectroradiometers, satellites, airborne and UAV platforms using visible, near and thermal infrared, microwave and other wavelengths (Santos et al, 2021). Such tools can be effectively used for fire prevention projects, assessment and monitoring purposes, as well as detecting areas affected by wildfires, estimating fire severity and burnt severity/ratio (GÜLCİ et al, 2021;Hu et al, 2021). The Sentinel 2 satellite has been used in several studies to detect burnt areas in order to determine the location and extent of fire events and to monitor environmental recovery (GÜLCİ et al, 2021;Hu et al, 2021;Pádua et al, 2020;Schroeder et al, 2016).…”

“…Such tools can be effectively used for fire prevention projects, assessment and monitoring purposes, as well as detecting areas affected by wildfires, estimating fire severity and burnt severity/ratio (GÜLCİ et al, 2021;Hu et al, 2021). The Sentinel 2 satellite has been used in several studies to detect burnt areas in order to determine the location and extent of fire events and to monitor environmental recovery (GÜLCİ et al, 2021;Hu et al, 2021;Pádua et al, 2020;Schroeder et al, 2016). According to the wider literature (Morresi et al, 2022) (Dindaroglu et al, 2021) (Zidane et al, 2021) (Abdikan et al, 2022) (Luo and Wu, 2022) (Putra et al, 2022) (Saulino et al, 2020), the analysis of the damage that an area suffers after a fire can be investigated using spectral indices.…”

Ten-year wildfire mapping using satellite imagery: the case study of Western Greece

“…Other studies proposed modified vegetation indexes 21,22 and evaluated their performance with statistical criteria based on probability theory 22 . Nowadays, the most sophisticated approaches in wildfire management are based on the integration of multispectral data and spectral indices along with soft computing algorithms, aiming at improving the accuracy of mapping, monitoring and assessing burnt areas [23][24][25][26][27][28] .…”