Agricultural burning in the Southeastern United States detected by MODIS

Abstract

The southeastern United States, including the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, had a high occurrence of fire activity as detected by the 1 km Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) TERRA Active Fire Product (MOD 14). The analysis of the satellite data from 2001 to 2004 showed that agricultural burning in the southeastern United States accounted for an average of 16% of annual fire activity. The southeastern region contributed an average of 33% of all agricultural burning detected in the contiguous United States. Crop residues that burned in the southeast included rice, winter wheat, sugarcane, soybean and cotton. Much of the agricultural burning occurred in June and from October to January and was related to the harvest of winter wheat and rice in the spring and the harvest of sugarcane, soybean and cotton in the fall and winter. The results showed that cropland burning was spatially dependent on crop type and temporally dependent on management practices (planting/harvesting). Arkansas, Florida, and Louisiana contributed more than 75% of all agricultural burning in the southeast. A 250 m MODIS land cover map cover for 2004 was developed for these three states using a decision tree classification and validation from a field campaign in the fall of 2004. Compared to the standard MODIS 1 km Land Cover Dataset (MOD 12) product ([Friedl, M. A., McIver, D. K., Hodges, J. C. F., Zhang, X. Y., Muchoney, D., Strahler, A. H., Woodcock, C. E., Gopal, S., Schneider, A., Cooper, A., Baccini, A., Gao, F., Schaaf, C. (2002), Global land cover mapping from MODIS: algorithms and early results. Remote Sensing of the Environment, 83, 287–302.]), the 250 m classified images contained on average 50% more cropland area and improved the estimation of cropland area based on validation from ground control sites of croplands. Results from the decision tree classification for each state revealed that in 2004 agricultural burning contributed 73%, 54%, and 33% of total fires for Arkansas, Florida, and Louisiana, respectively.