Abstract
Live fuel moisture content (LFMC) is an input factor in fire behavior simulation models highly contributing to fire ignition and propagation. Developing models capable of accurately estimating spatio-temporal changes of LFMC in different forest species is needed for wildfire risk assessment. In this paper, an empirical model based on multivariate linear regression was constructed for the forest cover classified as shrublands in the central part of the Valencian region in the Eastern Mediterranean of Spain in the fire season. A sample of 15 non-monospecific shrubland sites was used to obtain a spatial representation of this type of forest cover in that area. A prediction model was created by combining spectral indices and meteorological variables. This study demonstrates that the Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI) extracted from Sentinel-2 images and meteorological variables (mean surface temperature and mean wind speed) are a promising combination to derive cost-effective LFMC estimation models. The relationships between LFMC and spectral indices for all sites improved after using an additive site-specific index based on satellite information, reaching a R2adj = 0.70, RMSE = 8.13%, and MAE = 6.33% when predicting the average of LFMC weighted by the canopy cover fraction of each species of all shrub species present in each sampling plot.
Highlights
Wildfires are key natural processes shaping ecosystems dynamics
Different patterns of Live fuel moisture content (LFMC) behavior were observed along the studied period for different species (Figure 3)
This paper described the construction of empirical models to estimate LFMC_WAS
Summary
Wildfires are key natural processes shaping ecosystems dynamics. Some studies suggest that current fire regimes may cause disasters in the sense of inducing abrupt community changes or important soil losses [2], regions subject to regular fires may have high levels of species richness, and fire may be proposed as a major driver to explaining plant diversity at both community and global scales [3]. Due to climate and land use change, intense wildfires are becoming more common with an increasing concern of regional and national governments [4,5,6]. Wildfire danger and burnt areas are expected to increase over the century in southern Europe owing to climate warming [7]
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