A Google Earth Engine code to estimate properties of vegetation phenology in fire affected areas – A case study in North Evia wildfire event on August 2021

Abstract

The present work aims to demonstrate the application of a previously published methodology concerning the properties of NDVI time series in fire-affected areas. Our work has been motivated by the devastating fire events in the northern part of Evia island, during August 2021, that destroyed more than 400 km2 of forest and agricultural land. The fire had a strong impact on the environment and the local communities, depriving them of their main income sources. Within this paper, a Google Earth Engine tool was developed, to facilitate access, processing and estimation of properties of remotely sensed NDVI time series in distinct zones, that corresponds to the fire-affected area, whereas the second one delineates a zone of equal area and with the same land cover characteristics to the burned land as described by the CORINE Level 1 and Level 3 nomenclature. Landsat 8 NDVI times series, at a spatial resolution of 30 m, with a 32-day time step, was used to construct a time series from January 2014 to September 2021 and assess structural phenological differences in the two predefined zones. Results fully support our previous findings concerning the differences in the NDVI time series of the two examined zones that is of considerably lower standard deviation values in the fire-affected areas.