An accuracy assessment of the MTBS burned area product for shrub–steppe fires in the northern Great Basin, United States

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron M. Sparks ◽  
Luigi Boschetti ◽  
Alistair M. S. Smith ◽  
Wade T. Tinkham ◽  
Karen O. Lannom ◽  
...  

Although fire is a common disturbance in shrub–steppe, few studies have specifically tested burned area mapping accuracy in these semiarid to arid environments. We conducted a preliminary assessment of the accuracy of the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) burned area product on four shrub–steppe fires that exhibited varying degrees of within-fire patch heterogeneity. Independent burned area perimeters were derived through visual interpretation and were used to cross-compare the MTBS burned area perimeters with classifications produced using set thresholds on the Relativised differenced Normalised Burn Index (RdNBR), Mid-infrared Burn Index (MIRBI) and Char Soil Index (CSI). Overall, CSI provided the most consistent accuracies (96.3–98.6%), with only small commission errors (1.5–4.4%). MIRBI also had relatively high accuracies (92.2–97.9%) and small commission errors (2.1–10.8%). The MTBS burned area product had higher commission errors (4.3–15.5%), primarily due to inclusion of unburned islands and fingers within the fire perimeter. The RdNBR burned area maps exhibited lower accuracies (92.9–96.0%). However, the different indices when constrained by the MTBS perimeter provided variable results, with CSI providing the highest and least variable accuracies (97.4–99.1%). Studies seeking to use MTBS perimeters to analyse trends in burned area should apply spectral indices to constrain the final burned area maps. The present paper replaces a former paper of the same title (http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/WF13206), which was withdrawn owing to errors discovered in data analysis after the paper was accepted for publication.

Author(s):  
Aaron M. Sparks ◽  
Luigi Boschetti ◽  
Wade T. Tinkham ◽  
Alistair M. S. Smith ◽  
Karen O. Lannom ◽  
...  

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen M. de Klerk ◽  
Adam M. Wilson ◽  
Karen Steenkamp

Fire is a critical ecological process in the fynbos of the south-western area of South Africa, as it is for all dwarf Mediterranean shrublands. We evaluated the potential of current publicly available MODIS burned area products to contribute to an accurate fire history of the fynbos. To this end, we compared the Meraka Institute’s MODIS burned area product, based on the Giglio algorithm (termed the ‘WAMIS’ product) as well as the standard MODIS MCD45A1 burned area product, based on the Roy algorithm, with comprehensive manager-mapped fire boundary data. We used standard inventory accuracy assessment (number and size of individual burn scars) and confusion matrix techniques. Results showed promise for both burned area products, depending on the intended use. The MCD45A1 had low errors of commission (8.1–19.1%) and high consumer’s accuracy (80.9–91.9%), but relatively common errors of omission, making it useful for studies that need to identify burned pixels with a high degree of certainty. However, the WAMIS product generally had low errors of omission (12.2–43.8%) and greater producer’s accuracy (56.2–87.6%), making it a useful tool for supplementing manager-mapped fire records, especially for fynbos remnants occurring outside protected areas.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (10) ◽  
pp. 907 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nickolas Castro Santana ◽  
Osmar Abílio de Carvalho Júnior ◽  
Roberto Arnaldo Trancoso Gomes ◽  
Renato Fontes Guimarães

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) products are the most used in burned-area monitoring, on regional and global scales. This research aims to evaluate the accuracy of the MODIS burned-area and active-fire products to describe fire patterns in Brazil in the period 2001–2015. The accuracy analysis, in the year 2015, compared the MODIS products (MCD45/MCD64) and the burned areas extracted by the visual interpretation of the LANDSAT/Operational Land Imager (OLI) images from the confusion matrix. The accuracy analysis of the active-fire products (MOD14/MYD14) in the year 2015 used linear regression. We used the most accurate burned-area product (MCD64), in conjunction with environmental variables of land use and climate. The MCD45 product presented a high error of commission (>36.69%) and omission (>77.04%) for the whole country. The MCD64 product had fewer errors of omission (64.05%) compared with the MCD45 product, but increased errors of commission (45.85%). MCD64 data in 2001–2015 showed three fire domains in Brazil determined by the climatic pattern. Savanna and grassy areas in semi-humid zones are the most prone areas to fire, burning an average of 25% of their total area annually, with a fire return interval of 5–6 years.


2020 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 55-61
Author(s):  
Ettore Potente ◽  
Cosimo Cagnazzo ◽  
Alessandro Deodati ◽  
Giuseppe Mastronuzzi

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Gershunov ◽  
Janin Guzman Morales ◽  
Benjamin Hatchett ◽  
Kristen Guirguis ◽  
Rosana Aguilera ◽  
...  

AbstractSanta Ana winds (SAWs) are associated with anomalous temperatures in coastal Southern California (SoCal). As dry air flows over SoCal’s coastal ranges on its way from the elevated Great Basin down to sea level, all SAWs warm adiabatically. Many but not all SAWs produce coastal heat events. The strongest regionally averaged SAWs tend to be cold. In fact, some of the hottest and coldest observed temperatures in coastal SoCal are linked to SAWs. We show that hot and cold SAWs are produced by distinct synoptic dynamics. High-amplitude anticyclonic flow around a blocking high pressure aloft anchored at the California coast produces hot SAWs. Cold SAWs result from anticyclonic Rossby wave breaking over the northwestern U.S. Hot SAWs are preceded by warming in the Great Basin and dry conditions across the Southwestern U.S. Precipitation over the Southwest, including SoCal, and snow accumulation in the Great Basin usually precede cold SAWs. Both SAW flavors, but especially the hot SAWs, yield low relative humidity at the coast. Although cold SAWs tend to be associated with the strongest winds, hot SAWs tend to last longer and preferentially favor wildfire growth. Historically, out of large (> 100 acres) SAW-spread wildfires, 90% were associated with hot SAWs, accounting for 95% of burned area. As health impacts of SAW-driven coastal fall, winter and spring heat waves and impacts of smoke from wildfires have been recently identified, our results have implications for designing early warning systems. The long-term warming trend in coastal temperatures associated with SAWs is focused on January–March, when hot and cold SAW frequency and temperature intensity have been increasing and decreasing, respectively, over our 71-year record.


Author(s):  
O. M. Semenova ◽  
L. S. Lebedeva ◽  
N. V. Nesterova ◽  
T. A. Vinogradova

Abstract. Twelve mountainous basins of the Vitim Plateau (Eastern Siberia, Russia) with areas ranging from 967 to 18 200 km2 affected by extensive fires in 2003 (from 13 to 78% of burnt area) were delineated based on MODIS Burned Area Product. The studied area is characterized by scarcity of hydrometeorological observations and complex hydrological processes. Combined analysis of monthly series of flow and precipitation was conducted to detect short-term fire impact on hydrological response of the basins. The idea of basin-analogues which have significant correlation of flow with "burnt" watersheds in stationary (pre-fire) period with the assumption that fire impact produced an outlier of established dependence was applied. Available data allowed for qualitative detection of fire-induced changes at two basins from twelve studied. Summer flow at the Amalat and Vitimkan Rivers (22 and 78% proportion of burnt area in 2003, respectively) increased by 40–50% following the fire.The impact of fire on flow from the other basins was not detectable.The hydrological model Hydrograph was applied to simulate runoff formation processes for stationary pre-fire and non-stationary post-fire conditions. It was assumed that landscape properties changed after the fire suggest a flow increase. These changes were used to assess the model parameters which allowed for better model performance in the post-fire period.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 3229-3246
Author(s):  
Magí Franquesa ◽  
Melanie K. Vanderhoof ◽  
Dimitris Stavrakoudis ◽  
Ioannis Z. Gitas ◽  
Ekhi Roteta ◽  
...  

Abstract. Over the past 2 decades, several global burned area products have been produced and released to the public. However, the accuracy assessment of such products largely depends on the availability of reliable reference data that currently do not exist on a global scale or whose production require a high level of dedication of project resources. The important lack of reference data for the validation of burned area products is addressed in this paper. We provide the Burned Area Reference Database (BARD), the first publicly available database created by compiling existing reference BA (burned area) datasets from different international projects. BARD contains a total of 2661 reference files derived from Landsat and Sentinel-2 imagery. All those files have been checked for internal quality and are freely provided by the authors. To ensure database consistency, all files were transformed to a common format and were properly documented by following metadata standards. The goal of generating this database was to give BA algorithm developers and product testers reference information that would help them to develop or validate new BA products. BARD is freely available at https://doi.org/10.21950/BBQQU7 (Franquesa et al., 2020).


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Otón ◽  
Magi Franquesa ◽  
Joshua Lizundia-Loiola ◽  
Emilio Chuvieco

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