The Potential of Sentinel Satellites for Burnt Area Mapping and Monitoring in the Congo Basin Forests

Astrid Verhegghen,Frederic Achard,Hugh Eva,Sylvie Gourlet-Fleury,Valery Gond,Guido Ceccherini,Paolo Cerutti

doi:10.3390/rs8120986

Abstract

In this study, the recently launched Sentinel-2 (S2) optical satellite and the active radar Sentinel-1 (S1) satellite supported by active fire data from the MODIS sensor were used to detect and monitor forest fires in the Congo Basin. In the context of a very strong El Niño event, an unprecedented outbreak of fires was observed during the first months of 2016 in open forests formations in the north of the Republic of Congo. The anomalies of the recent fires and meteorological situation compared to historical data show the severity of the drought. Burnt areas mapped by the S1 SAR and S2 Multi Spectral Instrument (MSI) sensors highlight that the fires occurred mainly in Marantaceae forests, characterized by open tree canopy cover and an extensive tall herbaceous layer. The maps show that the origin of the fires correlates with accessibility to the forest, suggesting an anthropogenic origin. The combined use of the two independent and fundamentally different satellite systems of S2 and S1 captured an extent of 36,000 ha of burnt areas, with each sensor compensating for the weakness (cloud perturbations for S2, and sensitivity to ground moisture for S1) of the other.

Highlights

The period 2015–2016 has been determined as an El Niño year [1]
This paper demonstrates the potential for S2 and S1 data to detect and monitor fire outbreaks in forest ecosystems at finer temporal and spatial resolution than was previously possible
Burnt areas totalizing an area of 36,000 ha were detected in the north of the Republic of Congo thanks to the combined used of S1 and S2 time series

Summary

Introduction

A severe “drought” and an associated unprecedented outbreak of fires have been observed in the north of the Republic of Congo from January to April 2016. First observations report [2] that the fires took place in specific open forest formations, the Marantaceae forests. Selective logging activities, where specific species of trees are extracted from the forest, are widespread in most of the basin [6]. Of concern, to both the national forest service and to the local management, is the occurrence of fires in active

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