Abstract
Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) burnt area products are widely used to assess the damaged area after wildfires and agricultural burning have occurred. This study improved the accuracy of the assessment of the burnt areas by using the MCD45A1 and MCD64A1 burnt area products with the finer spatial resolution product from the Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager/Thermal Infrared Sensor (OLI/TIRS) surface reflectance data. Thus, more accurate wildfires and agricultural burning areas in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) for the year 2015 as well as the estimation of the fire emissions were reported. In addition, the results from this study were compared with the data derived from the fourth version of the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED) that included small fires (GFED4.1s). Upon analysis of the data of the burnt areas, it was found that the burnt areas obtained from the MCD64A1 and MCD45A1 had lower values than the reference fires for all vegetation fires. These results suggested multiplying the MCD64A1 and MCD45A1 for the GMS by the correction factors of 2.11−21.08 depending on the MODIS burnt area product and vegetation fires. After adjusting the burnt areas by the correction factor, the total biomass burnt area in the GMS during the year 2015 was about 33.3 million hectares (Mha), which caused the burning of 109 ± 22 million tons (Mt) of biomass. This burning emitted 178 ± 42 Mt of CO2, 469 ± 351 kilotons (kt) of CH4, 18 ± 3 kt of N2O, 9.4 ± 4.9 Mt of CO, 345 ± 206 kt of NOX, 46 ± 25 kt of SO2, 147 ± 117 kt of NH3, 820 ± 489 kt of PM2.5, 60 ± 32 kt of BC, and 350 ± 205 kt of OC. Furthermore, the emission results of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in all countries were slightly lower than GFED4.1s in the range between 0.3 and 0.6 times.
Highlights
The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) is a group of countries located in the northern part of Southeast Asia and Southern China consisting of Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and Yunnan province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China.The GMS occupies a large amount of agricultural area, rice, corn, and sugar cane, as well as forested area, including deciduous forest or evergreen forest [1,2]
The total burnt area in the GMS during the year 2015 assessed by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) products MCD45A1 and MCD64A1 was about 4.41 and 10.70 million hectares (Mha), respectively (Table 3)
This research emphasized improving the estimation of the burnt area available for biomass open burning that employed remote sensing data from the MODIS burnt area products, which have been widely used in the evaluation of burnt areas from vegetation fires
Summary
The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) is a group of countries located in the northern part of Southeast Asia and Southern China consisting of Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and Yunnan province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China.The GMS occupies a large amount of agricultural area, rice, corn, and sugar cane, as well as forested area, including deciduous forest or evergreen forest [1,2]. The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) is a group of countries located in the northern part of Southeast Asia and Southern China consisting of Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and Yunnan province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. According to the report of the ASEAN Specialized. Meteorological Centre (ASMC), which monitors the occurrence of fire in the Association of Southeast. Asian Nations (ASEAN) by using the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s satellite information, about 26,000−126,000 hotspots were found in the GMS during the years 2009–2018, especially during the dry season [5]. Due to the biomass burning situation, people in the GMS face an air pollution problem. In Thailand, the Pollution Control Department (PCD) monitors the air quality in Northern Thailand, nearby the forested and agricultural areas, and reported that the 24-h mean concentrations of PM2.5 during
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