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Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics in Wildfire Management

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A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Remote Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 August 2021) | Viewed by 21295

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Christos Vasilakos

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Guest Editor

Department of Geography, University of the Aegean, University Hill, 81100 Mytilene, Greece
Interests: geo-Informatics; remote sensing; photogrammetry; natural hazards; artificial intelligence

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Climate change favors conditions that boost fire activities in fire-prone areas. An effective wildfire management scheme is based on increased demand for up-to-date and accurate spatial information during all the phases of the disaster management cycle. Remote sensing and Geoinformatics have proven their effectiveness and efficiency in studying such spatio-temporal phenomena. More specifically, satellite and airborne sensors can acquire a vast amount of data that is transformed into valuable information through Geoinformatics analysis tools and techniques.

This Special Issue “Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics in Wildfire Management” aims to cover recent developments in remote sensing data acquisition and processing towards wildfire management (i.e., machine learning approaches, visual data exploration, big data technologies, and time series analysis). In particular, submitted papers should clearly show novel contributions and innovative applications of how Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics technology can support any of the following wildfire topics (but are not limited to these):

-Forest fuels mapping and monitoring;

-Fire detection and monitoring;

-Burned area mapping;

-wildland–urban interface delineation;

-Fire risk assessment;

-Vulnerability mapping;

-Policy implementation (i.e., Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)).

Dr. Christos Vasilakos
Guest Editor

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Keywords

wildfires
wildland–urban interface
fire risk
remote sensing
GIS
geoinformatics
geospatial technology
time series
artificial intelligence

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

29 pages, 3380 KiB

Open AccessArticle

GIS-Based Forest Fire Susceptibility Zonation with IoT Sensor Network Support, Case Study—Nature Park Golija, Serbia

by Ivan Novkovic, Goran B. Markovic, Djordje Lukic, Slavoljub Dragicevic, Marko Milosevic, Snezana Djurdjic, Ivan Samardzic, Tijana Lezaic and Marija Tadic

Sensors 2021, 21(19), 6520; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21196520 - 29 Sep 2021

Cited by 36 | Viewed by 5586

Abstract

The territory of the Republic of Serbia is vulnerable to various natural disasters, among which forest fires stand out. In relation with climate changes, the number of forest fires in Serbia has been increasing from year to year. Protected natural areas are especially endangered by wildfires. For Nature Park Golija, as the second largest in Serbia, with an area of 75,183 ha, and with MaB Reserve Golija-Studenica on part of its territory (53,804 ha), more attention should be paid in terms of forest fire mitigation. GIS and multi-criteria decision analysis are indispensable when it comes to spatial analysis for the purpose of natural disaster risk management. Index-based and fuzzy AHP methods were used, together with TOPSIS method for forest fire susceptibility zonation. Very high and high forest fire susceptibility zone were recorded on 26.85% (Forest Fire Susceptibility Index) and 25.75% (fuzzy AHP). The additional support for forest fire prevention is realized through an additional Internet of Thing (IoT)-based sensor network that enables the continuous collection of local meteorological and environmental data, which enables low-cost and reliable real-time fire risk assessment and detection and the improved long-term and short-term forest fire susceptibility assessment. Obtained results can be applied for adequate forest fire risk management, improvement of the monitoring, and early warning systems in the Republic of Serbia, but are also important for relevant authorities at national, regional, and local level, which will be able to coordinate and intervene in a case of emergency events. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics in Wildfire Management)

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23 pages, 5616 KiB

Open AccessArticle

MODIS Sensor Capability to Burned Area Mapping—Assessment of Performance and Improvements Provided by the Latest Standard Products in Boreal Regions

by José A. Moreno-Ruiz, José R. García-Lázaro, Manuel Arbelo and Manuel Cantón-Garbín

Sensors 2020, 20(18), 5423; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20185423 - 22 Sep 2020

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3122

Abstract

This paper presents an accuracy assessment of the main global scale Burned Area (BA) products, derived from daily images of the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Fire_CCI 5.1 and MCD64A1 C6, as well as the previous versions of both products (Fire_CCI 4.1 and MCD45A1 C5). The exercise was conducted on the boreal region of Alaska during the period 2000–2017. All the BA polygons registered by the Alaska Fire Service were used as reference data. Both new versions doubled the annual BA estimate compared to the previous versions (66% for Fire_CCI 5.1 versus 35% for v4.1, and 63% for MCD64A1 C6 versus 28% for C5), reducing the omission error (OE) by almost one half (39% versus 67% for Fire_CCI and 48% versus 74% for MCD) and slightly increasing the commission error (CE) (7.5% versus 7% for Fire_CCI and 18% versus 7% for MCD). The Fire_CCI 5.1 product (CE = 7.5%, OE = 39%) presented the best results in terms of positional accuracy with respect to MCD64A1 C6 (CE = 18%, OE = 48%). These results suggest that Fire_CCI 5.1 could be suitable for those users who employ BA standard products in geoinformatics analysis techniques for wildfire management, especially in Boreal regions. The Pareto boundary analysis, performed on an annual basis, showed that there is still a potential theoretical capacity to improve the MODIS sensor-based BA algorithms. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics in Wildfire Management)

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20 pages, 7966 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Remotely Sensed Data Fusion for Spatiotemporal Geostatistical Analysis of Forest Fire Hazard

by Stavros Sakellariou, Pedro Cabral, Mário Caetano, Filiberto Pla, Marco Painho, Olga Christopoulou, Athanassios Sfougaris, Nicolas Dalezios and Christos Vasilakos

Sensors 2020, 20(17), 5014; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20175014 - 3 Sep 2020

Cited by 23 | Viewed by 4550

Abstract

Forest fires are a natural phenomenon which might have severe implications on natural and anthropogenic ecosystems. Future projections predict that, under a climate change environment, the fire season would be lengthier with higher levels of droughts, leading to higher fire severity. The main aim of this paper is to perform a spatiotemporal analysis and explore the variability of fire hazard in a small Greek island, Skiathos (a prototype case of fragile environment) where the land uses mixture is very high. First, a comparative assessment of two robust modeling techniques was examined, namely, the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) knowledge-based and the fuzzy logic AHP to estimate the fire hazard in a timeframe of 20 years (1996–2016). The former technique was proven more representative after the comparative assessment with the real fire perimeters recorded on the island (1984–2016). Next, we explored the spatiotemporal dynamics of fire hazard, highlighting the risk changes in space and time through the individual and collective contribution of the most significant factors (topography, vegetation features, anthropogenic influence). The fire hazard changes were not dramatic, however, some changes have been observed in the southwestern and northern part of the island. The geostatistical analysis revealed a significant clustering process of high-risk values in the southwestern and northern part of the study area, whereas some clusters of low-risk values have been located in the northern territory. The degree of spatial autocorrelation tends to be greater for 1996 rather than for 2016, indicating the potential higher transmission of fires at the most susceptible regions in the past. The knowledge of long-term fire hazard dynamics, based on multiple types of remotely sensed data, may provide the fire and land managers with valuable fire prevention and land use planning tools. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics in Wildfire Management)

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23 pages, 5124 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Locating Forest Management Units Using Remote Sensing and Geostatistical Tools in North-Central Washington, USA

by Palaiologos Palaiologou, Maureen Essen, John Hogland and Kostas Kalabokidis

Sensors 2020, 20(9), 2454; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20092454 - 26 Apr 2020

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3272

Abstract

In this study, we share an approach to locate and map forest management units with high accuracy and with relatively rapid turnaround. Our study area consists of private, state, and federal land holdings that cover four counties in North-Central Washington, USA (Kittitas, Okanogan, Chelan and Douglas). This area has a rich history of landscape change caused by frequent wildfires, insect attacks, disease outbreaks, and forest management practices, which is only partially documented across ownerships in an inconsistent fashion. To consistently quantify forest management activities for the entire study area, we leveraged Sentinel-2 satellite imagery, LANDFIRE existing vegetation types and disturbances, monitoring trends in burn severity fire perimeters, and Landsat 8 Burned Area products. Within our methodology, Sentinel-2 images were collected and transformed to orthogonal land cover change difference and ratio metrics using principal component analyses. In addition, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index and the Relativized Burn Ratio index were estimated. These variables were used as predictors in Random Forests machine learning classification models. Known locations of forest treatment units were used to create samples to train the Random Forests models to estimate where changes in forest structure occurred between the years of 2016 and 2019. We visually inspected each derived polygon to manually assign one treatment class, either clearcut or thinning. Landsat 8 Burned Area products were used to derive prescribed fire units for the same period. The bulk of analyses were performed using the RMRS Raster Utility toolbar that facilitated spatial, statistical, and machine learning tools, while significantly reducing the required processing time and storage space associated with analyzing these large datasets. The results were combined with existing LANDFIRE vegetation disturbance and forest treatment data to create a 21-year dataset (1999–2019) for the study area. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics in Wildfire Management)

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16 pages, 3288 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Processing of Near Real Time Land Surface Temperature and Its Application in Forecasting Forest Fire Danger Conditions

by M. Razu Ahmed, Quazi K. Hassan, Masoud Abdollahi and Anil Gupta

Sensors 2020, 20(4), 984; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20040984 - 12 Feb 2020

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3677

Abstract

Near real time (NRT) remote sensing derived land surface temperature (Ts) data has an utmost importance in various applications of natural hazards and disasters. Space-based instrument MODIS (moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer) acquired NRT data products of Ts are made available for the users by LANCE (Land, Atmosphere Near real-time Capability) for Earth Observing System (EOS) of NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) free of cost. Such Ts products are swath data with 5 min temporal increments of satellite acquisition, and the average latency is 60-125 min to be available in public domain. The swath data of Ts requires a specialized tool, i.e., HEG (HDF-EOS to GeoTIFF conversion tool) to process and make the data useful for further analysis. However, the file naming convention of the available swath data files in LANCE is not appropriate to download for an area of interest (AOI) to be processed by HEG. In this study, we developed a method/algorithm to overcome such issues in identifying the appropriate swath data files for an AOI that would be able to further processes supported by the HEG. In this case, we used Terra MODIS acquired NRT swath data of Ts, and further applied it to an existing framework of forecasting forest fires (as a case study) for the performance evaluation of our processed Ts. We were successful in selecting appropriate swath data files of Ts for our study area that was further processed by HEG, and finally were able to generate fire danger map in the existing forecasting model. Our proposed method/algorithm could be applied on any swath data product available in LANCE for any location in the world. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics in Wildfire Management)

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