Vegetation and Soil Fire Damage Analysis Based on Species Distribution Modeling Trained with Multispectral Satellite Data

Carmen Quintano,Leonor Calvo,Dar A Roberts,Alfonso Fernández-Manso

doi:10.3390/rs11151832

Carmen Quintano, Leonor Calvo + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11151832

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Abstract

Forest managers demand reliable tools to evaluate post-fire vegetation and soil damage. In this study, we quantify wildfire damage to vegetation and soil based on the analysis of burn severity, using multitemporal and multispectral satellite data and species distribution models, particularly maximum entropy (MaxEnt). We studied a mega-wildfire (9000 ha burned) in North-Western Spain, which occurred from 21 to 27 August 2017. Burn severity was measured in the field using the composite burn index (CBI). Burn severity of vegetation and soil layers (CBIveg and CBIsoil) was also differentiated. MaxEnt provided the relative contribution of each pre-fire and post-fire input variable on low, moderate and high burn severity levels, as well as on all severity levels combined (burned area). In addition, it built continuous suitability surfaces from which the burned surface area and burn severity maps were built. The burned area map achieved a high accuracy level (κ = 0.85), but slightly lower accuracy when differentiating the three burn severity classes (κ = 0.81). When the burn severity map was validated using field CBIveg and CBIsoil values we reached lower κ statistic values (0.76 and 0.63, respectively). This study revealed the effectiveness of the proposed multi-temporal MaxEnt based method to map fire damage accurately in Mediterranean ecosystems, providing key information to forest managers.

Highlights

Wildfires have become a major concern in recent years, in the Euro-Mediterranean region [1], with significant ecological consequences on ecosystems [2]
This study revealed the effectiveness of the proposed multi-temporal maximum entropy (MaxEnt) based method to map fire damage accurately in Mediterranean ecosystems, providing key information to forest managers
Our study analyzed the relative contribution of different pre-and post-fire variables from multispectral data on burned area delimitation and burn severity estimation

Summary

Introduction

Wildfires have become a major concern in recent years, in the Euro-Mediterranean region [1], with significant ecological consequences on ecosystems [2] Into this region, Spain represents one of the most affected countries, where approximately 180,000 ha were burned during 2017, all in forested areas. The effects of fire on ecosystems are mediated, among other factors, by the fire regime parameters In this sense, burn severity is one of the most significant and might alter the vegetation recovery capacity [4] and soil properties, issues that must be critical for forest management. These soil changes may influence vegetation structure and/or composition as well as driving vegetation dynamics over time [15,16]

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