Evaluation of Spectral Indices for Assessing Fire Severity in Australian Temperate Forests

Bang Nguyen Tran; Mihai A. Tanase; Lauren T. Bennett; Cristina Aponte

doi:10.3390/rs10111680

journal article Open Access Oct 24, 2018

Evaluation of Spectral Indices for Assessing Fire Severity in Australian Temperate Forests

Bang Nguyen Tran

Mihai A. Tanase Lauren T. Bennett

Cristina Aponte

Remote Sensing Vol. 10 No. 11 pp. 1680 · MDPI AG

View at Publisher Save 10.3390/rs10111680

Abstract

Spectral indices derived from optical remote sensing data have been widely used for fire-severity classification in forests from local to global scales. However, comparative analyses of multiple indices across diverse forest types are few. This represents an information gap for fire management agencies in areas like temperate south-eastern Australia, which is characterised by a diversity of natural forests that vary in structure, and in the fire-regeneration strategies of the dominant trees. We evaluate 10 spectral indices across eight areas burnt by wildfires in 1998, 2006, 2007, and 2009 in south-eastern Australia. These wildfire areas encompass 13 forest types, which represent 86% of the 7.9M ha region’s forest area. Forest types were aggregated into six forest groups based on their fire-regeneration strategies (seeders, resprouters) and structure (tree height and canopy cover). Index performance was evaluated for each forest type and forest group by examining its sensitivity to four fire-severity classes (unburnt, low, moderate, high) using three independent methods (anova, separability, and optimality). For the best-performing indices, we calculated index-specific thresholds (by forest types and groups) to separate between the four severity classes, and evaluated the accuracy of fire-severity classification on independent samples. Our results indicated that the best-performing indices of fire severity varied with forest type and group. Overall accuracy for the best-performing indices ranged from 0.50 to 0.78, and kappa values ranged from 0.33 (fair agreement) to 0.77 (substantial agreement), depending on the forest group and index. Fire severity in resprouter open forests and woodlands was most accurately mapped using the delta Normalised Burnt ratio (dNBR). In contrast, dNDVI (delta Normalised difference vegetation index) performed best for open forests with mixed fire responses (resprouters and seeders), and dNDWI (delta Normalised difference water index) was the most accurate for obligate seeder closed forests. Our analysis highlighted the low sensitivity of all indices to fire impacts in Rainforest. We conclude that the optimal spectral index for quantifying fire severity varies with forest type, but that there is scope to group forests by structure and fire-regeneration strategy to simplify fire-severity classification in heterogeneous forest landscapes.

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Details

Published: Oct 24, 2018
Vol/Issue: 10(11)
Pages: 1680
License: View

Authors

B

Bang Nguyen Tran

School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne, 500 Yarra Boulevard, Richmond, Victoria 3121, Australia; Faculty of Environment, Vietnam National University of Agriculture, Ngo Xuan Quang Street, Trauquy, Gialam, Hanoi, Vietnam

M

Mihai A. Tanase

School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne, 500 Yarra Boulevard, Richmond, Victoria 3121, Australia; Department of Geology, Geography and Environment, University of Alcala, C. Colegios 2, 28801 Alcala de Henares, Spain

L

Lauren T. Bennett

School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne, 4 Water Street, Creswick, Victoria 3363, Australia

C

Cristina Aponte

School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne, 500 Yarra Boulevard, Richmond, Victoria 3121, Australia

Cite This Article

Bang Nguyen Tran, Mihai A. Tanase, Lauren T. Bennett, et al. (2018). Evaluation of Spectral Indices for Assessing Fire Severity in Australian Temperate Forests. Remote Sensing, 10(11), 1680. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10111680

Evaluation of Spectral Indices for Assessing Fire Severity in Australian Temperate Forests

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