why looking at burnt areas at global level ?

Space Applications Institute(jmg/Publi/Varese_2001/Seminar_Insubria.ppt) Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit

Mapping of burnt areas at global level: current possibilities offered by optical Earth Observation

Systems

J-M. Grégoire 1 & P. A. Brivio 2

1 Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit - Space Applications Institute - Joint Research Centre2 Telerilevamento - Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Milano

January 31st 2001


Why looking at burnt areas at global level ?

Just because we are all a little bit fire-bug ?

Because it’s one of the 4 elements ?

Or because it’s a scientific issue ?


It’s a scientific issue for at least 3 reasons

Fire is a global scale phenomena

It has a direct impact on the vegetation cover type and condition,with consequences in terms of:- changes or maintenance of the vegetation cover- soil erosion- degradation, or maintenance, of the biodiversity

It has a direct impact on the chemistry of the lower troposphere, with3 major consequences:- the emission of large quantities of green house gases and of aerosols- the modification of the radiative transfer at the biosphere-atmosphereinterface- the acidification of precipitations


Vegetation firesA global scale phenomena

There is at any time a fire burning somewhere at the surface of the Earth

Dwyer et al., 1999, J. of Biogeography


Burning has a direct impact on the vegetation cover type and condition

Frequent burning is favouring the fire resistant species

Palm savanna - Ivory Coast


Burning has a direct impact on the vegetation cover type and condition

Frequent burning is shaping the structure of the vegetation cover

Gallery forest - Ivory Coast


Burning has a direct impact on soil erosion

Slash and burn agriculture - Vietnam/Laos borderSoil is totally unprotected against the heavy storms at the beginning of the rainy season


Burning has a direct impact on the vegetation cover type and condition, withdeep impact on the biodiversity

Bolivia(Amazon Basin)

Suriname

Maintenance of a given habitat

Destruction of the habitat


Vegetation fires have a direct impact on the chemistry of the lower troposphere

Importance of biomass burning as “ anthropogenic emissions sourceof greenhouse gases and aerosols” (Kyoto Protocol)

Species All human sources Biomass burning Global savannas fires(Tg/yr) (Tg/yr) % (Tg/yr) %

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CO2 33700a 13500 40 6070 18

CO 1600a 680 43 240 15

CH4 275a 43 16 9 3

Aerosols 390e 90 23 37 9Black carbon 90e 60 67 3 3-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

a: Houghton et al., 1995e: Scholes & Andreae, 2000


What is a vegetation fire ?

What are we looking at ?


Fire on the ground

Wet savanna - Cote d’Ivoire

Tropical woodland - Northern Australia

A narrow fire front runningthrough the savanna


Fire as seen from low altitude air survey

Tropical woodland - Central African Republic

A fire front + a burnt area + a smoke plume


Fire as seen from low resolution satellite imageryNorthern Australia - June 1st 1999 - 550km x 550km

SPOT-VEGETATION 10.30 am NOAA-AVHRR 4 pm


The use of satellite remote sensing

see second part by P.A. Briviofile: Insubria_Brivio.ppt


Short-term perspectives

The Global Burnt Area 2000 initiative: GBA-2000Mapping, from SPOT-VEGETATION S1 imagery,of the areas burnt globally during the year 2000

The WORLD FIRE WEB NetworkA system for globally mapping vegetation fires in near real-time,using the NOAA-AVHRR satellite


GBA 2000: a network approachCSIRO(AU) - UTL(P) - NRI(UK) - CNR(I) - CCRS (CA) - CRG (CA) - IFI (RU) - SAI (EU)

GBA test-sites (white rectangles; indicative position), with corresponding geographical coordinates (Ul; LR corners)

63N - 81W44N - 55W(CRG)

62.5N-112W57N-104.5W(CCRS)

18N - 93W7N - 77W(NRI)

5S - 75W20S - 45W(UTL)

17S - 21E28S - 29E(NRI)

10S - 22E28S - 42E(UTL)

18N - 18W0 - 52E(CNR)

44N - 10W36N - 0(UTL)

11S - 125E21S - 135E(CSIRO)

60N - 118E48N - 140E(IFI)

68N - 45E60N - 60E(IFI)

55N - 115E40N - 135E(UTL)

10S - 125E18S - 146E(GVM)


Year 2001

The WORLD FIRE WEB Network

18 regional fire monitoring centres


Ahern F., et al., 2000, Forest fire monitoring and mapping: a component of Global Observation of Forest Cover.Publications of the European Commission, EUR 19588, Luxembourg, 253 pp.

Barbosa P.M., et al., 1999, An assessment of vegetation fire in Africa (1981-1991): burned areas, burned biomass andatmospheric emissions. Global Biogeochemical Cycles,Vol. 13 , No. 04 , p. 933-950.

Brivio P. A. e J.-M. Grégoire, 1997, Gli incendi nella fascia tropicale del globo: aspetti metodologici nell'analisi dei datida satellite. Rivista Italiana di Telerilevamento, n. 11, pp. 17-26.

Dwyer E., et al., 1999, Characterization of the spatio-temporal patterns of global fire activity using satellite imageryfor the period April 1992 to March 1993. J. of Biogeography, Vol 27, pp 57 – 69.

Grégoire J-M. , et al., 1999, Satellite monitoring of vegetation fires for EXPRESSO: Outline of activity and relativeimportance of the study area in the continental context and global context of biomass burning.J. Geophysical Res, Vol. 104 , D23 , 30,691-30,699.

Grégoire J-M., et al., 2000, The SMOKO experiment: development and test of a multi-systems approach to burntarea mapping from optical, thermal and microwave satellite data. Publication of the European Commission,EUR 19596 EN, 74 pp.

Stroppiana D., et al., The Global Fire Product: daily fire occurrence, from April 1992 to December 1993, derived fromNOAA-AVHRR data. Int. J. of Remote Sensing, Vol. 21, No. 6/7, April 2000, 1279-1288.

Thank you toLuigi Boschetti CNR/Milan mapping burnt areas from geostationnary satellitesEdward Dywer SARMAP mapping fires from AVHRRMarta Maggi CNR/Milan mapping burnt areas from AVHRR and VGT dataSimon Pinnock JRC/Ispra responsible World Fire Web networkDaniela Stroppiana JRC/Ispra mapping burnt areas from VGT dataand all the friends around the world who contribute to the World Fire Web and Global Burnt Area networks

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why looking at burnt areas at global level ?

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