ISSN 2070-7401 (Print), ISSN 2411-0280 (Online)
Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa
CURRENT PROBLEMS IN REMOTE SENSING OF THE EARTH FROM SPACE

  

Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa, 2019, Vol. 16, No. 5, pp. 217-227

The possibilities of prolonged burnt severity assessment of evergreen coniferous forest using multi-spectral satellite data

F.V. Stytsenko 1 , S.А. Bartalev 1 , A.V. Bukas 2 , D.V. Ershov 3, 1 , I.A. Saigin 1 
1 Space Research Institute RAS, Moscow, Russia
2 Russian Centre of Forest Health, Pushkino, Moscow Region, Russia
3 Center for Forest Ecology and Productivity RAS, Moscow, Russia
Accepted: 06.09.2019
DOI: 10.21046/2070-7401-2019-16-5-217-227
The results of experimental studies presented in this paper characterize the possibility of quantitative assessment of the damaged forests state in a few years after the fire according to multispectral satellite measurements. The necessary independent reference data on forest damage were collected during the ground surveys of test sites in the Amur, Irkutsk, Tomsk Regions, the Republic of Komi and the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The analysis made it possible to draw a conclusion about the significant influence of the processes of post-fire restoration of ground vegetation cover on the spectral-reflective characteristics of damaged forests measured during the vegetation period, and, as a consequence, the need to take this factor into account in the remote assessment of their degree of damage. The conducted research allowed drawing a conclusion about the principal possibility of using satellite images obtained in winter with the presence of snow cover on the earth’s surface to assess the degree of fire damage to coniferous evergreen forests. The advantages of using satellite data of the winter survey period are due to the masking effect of snow cover, minimizing the influence of spatially inhomogeneous spectral-reflective characteristics of ground vegetation on the values of vegetation indices damaged by forest fires. The use of satellite imagery data in the period with the presence of snow on the earth’s surface opens up the possibility of a unified application of the established dependencies between the values of vegetation indices and the degree of damage by fires of coniferous evergreen forests to assess the long-term dynamics of their condition.
Keywords: remote sensing, multi-spectral satellite images, spectral vegetation index, forest fire, burn severity, forest status
Full text

References:

  1. Bartalev S. A., Egorov V. A., Krylov A. M., Stytsenko F. V., Khovratovich T. S., Issledovanie vozmozhnostei otsenki sostoyaniya povrezhdennykh pozharami lesov po dannym mnogospektral’nykh sputnikovykh izmerenii (The evaluation of possibilities to assess forest burnt severity using multi-spectral satellite data), Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa, 2010, Vol. 7, No 3, pp. 215–225.
  2. Bartalev S. A., Stytsenko F. V., Egorov V. A., Loupian E. A., Sputnikovaya otsenka gibeli lesov Rossii ot pozharov (Assessment of Russian forest fire mortality using satellite data), Lesovedenie, 2015. No. 2, pp. 83–94.
  3. Bartalev S. A., Egorov V. A., Zharko V. O., Loupian E. A., Plotnikov D. E., Khvostikov S. A., Shabanov N. V., Sputnikovoe kartografirovanie rastitel’nogo pokrova Rossii (Land cover mapping over Russia using Earth observation data), Moscow: IKI RAN, 2016, 208 p.
  4. Bartalev S. A., Stytsenko F. V., Khvostikov S. A., Loupian E. A., Metodologiya monitoringa i prognozirovaniya pirogennoi gibeli lesov na osnove dannykh sputnikovykh nablyudenii (Methodology of post-fire tree mortality monitoring and prediction using remote sensing data), Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa, 2017, Vol. 14, No. 6, pp. 176–193. DOI: 10.21046/2070-7401-2017-14-6-176-193.
  5. Loupian E. A., Proshin A. A., Burtsev M. A., Balashov I. V., Bartalev S. A., Efremov V. Yu., Kashnitskii A. V., Mazurov A. A., Matveev A. M., Sudneva O. A., Sychugov I. G., Tolpin V. A., Uvarov I. A., Tsentr kollektivnogo pol’zovaniya sistemami arkhivatsii, obrabotki i analiza sputnikovykh dannykh IKI RAN dlya resheniya zadach izucheniya i monitoringa okruzhayushchei sredy (IKI center for collective use of satellite data archiving, processing and analysis systems aimed at solving the problems of environmental study and monitoring), Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa, 2015, Vol. 12, No. 5, pp. 263–284.
  6. Loupian E. A., Bartalev S. A., Balashov I. V., Egorov V. A., Ershov D. V., Kobets D. A., Senko K. S., Stytsenko F. V., Sychugov I. G., Sputnikovyi monitoring lesnykh pozharov v 21 veke na territorii Rossiiskoi Federatsii (tsifry i fakty po dannym detektirovaniya aktivnogo goreniya) (Satellite monitoring of forest fires in the 21st century in the territory of the Russian Federation (facts and figures based on active fires detection)), Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa, 2017, Vol. 14, No. 6, pp. 158–175, DOI: 10.21046/2070-7401-2017-14-6-158-175.
  7. Stytsenko F. V., Bartalev S. A., Egorov V. A., Loupian E. A., Metod otsenki stepeni povrezhdeniya lesov pozharami na osnove sputnikovykh dannykh MODIS (Post-fire forest tree mortality assessment method using MODIS satellite), Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa, 2013, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 254–266.
  8. Cherepanov A. S., Druzhinina E. G., Spektral’nye svoistva rastitel’nosti i vegetatsionnye indeksy, Geomatics, 2009, No. 3, pp. 28–32.
  9. Allen J. L., Sorbel B., Assessing the differenced Normalized Burn Ratio’s ability to map burn severity in the boreal forest and tundra ecosystems of Alaska’s national parks, Intern. J. Wildland Fire, 2008, Vol. 17, pp. 463–475.
  10. Cai W., Yang J., Liu Z., Hu Y., Weisberg P. J., Post-fire tree recruitment of a boreal larch forest in Northeast China, Forest Ecology and Management, 2013, Vol. 307, pp. 20–29, DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2013.06.056.
  11. Cocke E. A., Fule P. Z., Crouse J. E., Comparison of burn severity assessments using the Differenced Normalized Burn Ratio and ground data, Intern. J. Wildland Fire, 2005, Vol. 14, pp. 189–198.
  12. Epting J., Verbyla D., Landscape-level interactions of prefire vegetation, burn severity, and postfire vegetation over a 16-year period in interior Alaska. Canadian J. Forest Research, 2005, Vol. 35, pp. 1367–1377, DOI: 10.1139/x05-060.
  13. Hoy E. E., French N. H., Turetsky M. R., Trigg S. N., Kasischke E. S., Evaluating the potential of Landsat TM/ETM+ imagery for assessing fire severity in Alaskan black spruce forests, Intern. J. Wildland Fire, 2008, Vol. 17, pp. 500–514.
  14. Isaev A. S., Korovin G. N., Bartalev S. A., Ershov D. V., Janetos A. C., Kasischke E. S., Shugart H. H., French N. H., Orlick B. E., Murphy T. L., Using Remote Sensing to Assess Russian Forest Fire Carbon Emissions, Climate Change, 2002, Vol. 55, No 1–2, pp. 235–249.