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Author(s):
Jan W. van Wagtendonk, Ralph Root, Carl H. Key
Year Published:

Cataloging Information

Topic(s):
Mapping
Fuels
Fuels Inventory & Monitoring

NRFSN number: 11174
FRAMES RCS number: 808
Record updated:

Summary of Findings: (1) Satellite imagery has the potential to map fuel models at the national and local levels: (a) Landsat. The Landfire project has shown that Landsat 7 (ETM+) data are useful for mapping fuels at the national level. Critical to developing accurate maps are data collected in the field on fuels and vegetation. At Yosemite, both the Gradient Nearest Neighbor Project and the combination of vegetation maps with Landsat data have produced reliable fuel model maps that have been accepted by managers and are in use today. (b) AVIRIS. Although it was thought that the higher spectral and spatial resolution of AVIRIS data would improve the accuracy and quality of fuel model maps, the difficulty in obtaining the imagery and its high cost precludes its use. If hyperspectral data become readily available at a reasonable cost, it would be instructive to reinitiate a project to compare the two image sources. This would be particularly true for local applications. (2) AVIRIS imagery compares well with Landsat for detecting fire severity, but has distinct limitations: AVIRIS imagery proved equal to ETM+ for detecting burn severity. Unfortunately, use of AVIRIS in multi-temporal differencing may be limited by the complexity of mission planning and the high cost of data acquisition. Moreover, AVIRIS is not continuously flown and coverage is not geographically contiguous. There are also issues of complexity in the georectification necessary for temporal differencing, especially with multiple flight lines and terrain exhibiting high topographic relief. Until orbital imaging spectrometers with the capability of capturing data at regular intervals are in routine use, it is doubtful such data are currently practical for making burn assessments.

Citation

van Wagtendonk, Jan, Ralph Root and Carl Key. 2005. The use of Landsat 7 (ETM+) and AVIRIS data to map fuels characteristic classes in western ecosystems - Final Report to the Joint Fire Science Program. JFSP Project No. 00-1-3-01. Yosemite, CA: USGS, Western Ecological Research Center. 10 p.

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