Monitoring post-wildfire vegetation response with remotely sensed time-series data in Spain, USA and Israel

Abstract

Due to the challenges faced by resource managers in maintaining post-fire ecosystem health, there is a need for methods to assess the ecological consequences of disturbances. This research examines an approach for assessing changes in post-fire vegetation dynamics for sites in Spain, Israel and the USA that burned in 1998, 1999 and 2002 respectively. Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer satellite Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time-series data (2000–07) are used for all sites to characterise and track the seasonal and spatial changes in vegetation response. Post-fire trends and metrics for burned areas are evaluated and compared with unburned reference sites to account for the influence of local environmental conditions. Time-series data interpretation provides insights into climatic influences on the post-fire vegetation. Although only two sites show increases in post-fire vegetation, all sites show declines in heterogeneity across the site. The evaluation of land surface phenological metrics, including the start and end of the season, the base and peak NDVI, and the integrated seasonal NDVI, show promising results, indicating trends in some measures of post-fire phenology. Results indicate that this monitoring approach, based on readily available satellite-based time-series vegetation data, provides a valuable tool for assessing post-fire vegetation response.

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

“…The unburned control plot procedure, which is widely used in NDVI-based studies related to the post-fire vegetation recovery (Díaz-Delgado et al, 2002;Idris et al, 2005;Lhermitte et al, 2010Lhermitte et al, , 2011Li et al, 2008;van Leeuwen et al, 2010;Veraverbeke et al, 2011), has not to our knowledge been applied to fraction images. Our study validated its use with MESMA SGV fraction images.…”

“…quired over a single region have allowed for Landsat based time series analysis approaches. Since vegetation indices (or more generally spectral indices) from satellite imagery have been commonly used to monitor, analyze and map temporal and spatial dynamics of post-fire environments (Chu and Guo, 2014), spectral index time series analysis has been a multitemporal procedure particularly useful to monitor post-fire vegetation (Bastos et al, 2011;Chen et al, 2014;Dubovyk et al, 2015;Lanorte et al, 2014;Riaño et al, 2002;van Leeuwen et al, 2010).…”

Landscape – wildfire interactions in southern Europe: Implications for landscape management

“…Thirdly, fire disturbance creates more connected and homogeneous vegetation patches (fuel continuity) that favours fire spread and future fires (Chuvieco, 1999;Lloret et al, 2002;Loepfe et al, 2010;van Leeuwen et al, 2010;Viedma et al, 2006). Shrublands form large patches of fuel of the same age because the post-fire fuel build-up is rapid (Baeza and Vallejo, 2008).…”

An intercomparison of Satellite Burned Area Maps derived from MODIS, MERIS, SPOT-VEGETATION, and ATSR images. An application to the August 2006 Galicia (Spain) forest fires

“…In addition, forest fires release a significant amount of greenhouse gases, particulates, and aerosol emissions into the atmosphere, which in turn significantly increases the anthropogenic CO 2 emissions and the global warming phenomenon itself (Crutzen and Andreae, 1990;Levine, 1991;Van Leeuwen et al, 2010).…”