Abstract
When wildfires are controlled, they are integral to the existence of savannah ecosystems and play an intrinsic role in maintaining their structure and function. Ample studies on wildfire detection and severity mapping are available but what remains a challenge is the accurate mapping of burnt areas in heterogenous landscapes. In this study, we tested which spectral bands contributed most to burnt area detection when using Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8 multispectral sensors in two study sites. Post-fire Sentinel 2A and Landsat 8 images were classified using the Random Forest (RF) classifier. We found out that, the NIR, Red, Red-edge and Blue spectral bands contributed most to burned area detection when using Landsat 8 and Sentinel 2A. We found out that, Landsat 8 had a higher classification accuracy (OA = 0.92, Kappa = 0.85 and TSS = 0.84)) in study site 1 as compared to Sentinel-2 (OA = 0.86, Kappa = 0.74 and TSS = 0.76). In study site 2, Sentinel-2 had a slightly higher classification accuracy (OA = 0.89, Kappa = 0.67 and TSS = 0.64) which was comparable to that of Landsat 8 (OA = 0.85, Kappa = 0.50 and TSS = 0.41). Our study adds rudimentary knowledge on the most reliable sensor allowing reliable estimation of burnt areas and improved post-fire ecological evaluations on ecosystem damage and carbon emission.
Highlights
Wildfires have been topical in most parts of the world, and recently got more attention following the California and Australian fires [1,2]
In the two study sites that our hypothesis was tested, our results show that both Landsat 8 and Sentinel 2A had high burned area detection (OA >0.86, Kappa >0.5 and True Skill Statistics (TSS) >0.41) (Fig 2)
Knowledge on the most reliable sensor allows for reliable estimation of burnt areas and improves post-fire ecological evaluations on ecosystem damage and carbon emission
Summary
Wildfires have been topical in most parts of the world, and recently got more attention following the California and Australian fires [1,2]. During the wildfire suppression paradigm, wildfires were not fully understood and were viewed as ecosystem disruptors [3]. We know wildfires, when controlled are integral to the existence of savannah ecosystems and play an intrinsic role in maintaining their structure and function [4,5]. 340 million hectares burn annually and according to Andela and van der Werf [6], Africa contributes 70% of the global burnt area. Wildfires are contributing immensely to global carbon emissions [8], and their detection remains central to wildfire ecology
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