<i>A Spatio-temporal approach for daily burned area mapping at 250?m from MODIS data of Kansas Flint Hill region.</i>

Abstract

Abstract. Prescribed burning in the Flint Hills region is a major source of air pollutants with a huge impact on regional air quality by contributing to the formation and exceedances of O3 in the atmosphere. Cost-effective pollution control of burning impact on O3 could be achieved by developing regression models to simulate O3 contributions from prescribed burning using long term daily O3 and daily burned-area data. The objective of this study is to map daily burned-area in the Flint Hills region from a hybrid approach that uses satellite data from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) highest resolution (250 m) near-infrared band with the time frame from 2003 to 2019. Motivated by the possibility of having a simple, reliable, and general method, we developed an estimation method for daily-burned area based on improved modeling of seasonal burned-area data. The performance of developed algorithm was evaluated assuming a correlation between the accumulated burned area and active fire count based on several assumptions and modifications to quantify daily burn activity. Uncertainties and limitations of the retrieved daily burned area was discussed. Spatial and temporal distributions and patterns of daily burned area throughout the burning seasons are investigated. The weather condition variability in each county is a major factor that influence daily burning occurrence. The daily burned area distribution patterns revealed that large fires are more likely to occur in April at the Central part of Flint Hills. The project findings seek to lay the foundation for coordinated assessment for regional modeling O3 by addressing data and analysis gaps, promote awareness and cooperation among air quality planners, general public and land managers for better planning of burning activities.