Utilization of Hyperspectral Remote Sensing Imagery for Improving Burnt Area Mapping Accuracy

Michael Nolde,Torsten Riedlinger,Simon Plank

doi:10.3390/rs13245029

Abstract

Wildfires pose a direct threat when occurring close to populated areas. Additionally, their significant carbon and climate feedbacks represent an indirect threat on a global, long-term scale. Monitoring and analyzing wildfires is therefore a crucial task to increase the understanding of interconnections between fire and ecosystems, in order to improve wildfire management activities. This study investigates the suitability of 232 different red/near-infrared band combinations based on hyperspectral imagery of the DESIS sensor with regard to burnt area detection accuracy. It is shown that the selection of wavelengths greatly influences the detection quality, and that especially the utilization of lower near-infrared wavelengths increases the yielded accuracy. For burnt area analysis based on the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), the optimal wavelength range has been found to be 660–670 nm and 810–835 nm for the red band and near-infrared band, respectively.

Highlights

Imagery for Improving Burnt AreaDisastrous wildfires, such as the ones occurring in New South Wales/Australia in2019/2020 or in California/USA in 2020, have gained wide recognition in the global media.While the endangerment of human lives and property is the primary point of concern, global wildfire activity is a significant contributor to the greenhouse effect throughCO2 emissions, fostering global warming [1,2]
The term True Positives (TPpix ) subsequently refer to the number of burnt area pixels which are derived for a specific DLR Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer (DESIS) band combination regarding a single scene, which overlap with the burnt area pixels contained in the Sentinel-3 Ocean and Land Color Instrument (OLCI) reference
The term False Positives (FPpix ) addresses the number of derived burnt area pixels which do not overlap with the burnt area pixels in the reference

Summary

Introduction

Imagery for Improving Burnt AreaDisastrous wildfires, such as the ones occurring in New South Wales/Australia in2019/2020 or in California/USA in 2020, have gained wide recognition in the global media.While the endangerment of human lives and property is the primary point of concern, global wildfire activity is a significant contributor to the greenhouse effect throughCO2 emissions, fostering global warming [1,2]. Disastrous wildfires, such as the ones occurring in New South Wales/Australia in. While the endangerment of human lives and property is the primary point of concern, global wildfire activity is a significant contributor to the greenhouse effect through. Studies showed that forest loss has increased substantially over the past two decades in many parts of the world, and that the underlying dynamics can be largely attributed to fire activity [3]. A better understanding of interactions between ecosystems, climate, humans and wildfire is a constant aim in fire science [4]. Multispectral remote sensing allows the observation of large-scale fire activity patterns with high temporal resolution, which has significantly improved the knowledge in this domain in the past few decades. Monitoring wildfires using satellite-based Earth Observation imagery has become an essential tool for wildfire analysis and mitigation management

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Conclusion