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 Centre 2 Telerilevamento - Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Milano January 31 st 2001
Space Applications Institute (jmg/Publi/Varese_2001/Seminar_Insubria.ppt) Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit 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 ?
Space Applications Institute (jmg/Publi/Varese_2001/Seminar_Insubria.ppt) Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit 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, with 3 major consequences: - the emission of large quantities of green house gases and of aerosols - the modification of the radiative transfer at the biosphere-atmosphere interface - the acidification of precipitations
Space Applications Institute (jmg/Publi/Varese_2001/Seminar_Insubria.ppt) Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit Vegetation fires A 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
Space Applications Institute (jmg/Publi/Varese_2001/Seminar_Insubria.ppt) Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit Burning has a direct impact on the vegetation cover type and condition Frequent burningis favouring the fire resistant species Palm savanna - Ivory Coast
Space Applications Institute (jmg/Publi/Varese_2001/Seminar_Insubria.ppt) Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit Burning has a direct impact on the vegetation cover type and condition Frequent burningis shaping the structure of the vegetation cover Gallery forest - Ivory Coast
Space Applications Institute (jmg/Publi/Varese_2001/Seminar_Insubria.ppt) Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit Burning has a direct impact on soil erosion Slash and burn agriculture - Vietnam/Laos border Soil is totally unprotected against the heavy storms at the beginning of the rainy season
Space Applications Institute (jmg/Publi/Varese_2001/Seminar_Insubria.ppt) Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit Burning has a direct impact on the vegetation cover type and condition, with deep impact on the biodiversity Bolivia (Amazon Basin) Suriname Maintenance of a given habitat Destruction of the habitat
Space Applications Institute (jmg/Publi/Varese_2001/Seminar_Insubria.ppt) Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit Vegetation fires have a direct impact on the chemistry of the lower troposphere Importance of biomass burning as “ anthropogenic emissions source of greenhouse gases and aerosols” (Kyoto Protocol) SpeciesAll human sourcesBiomass burningGlobal savannas fires (Tg/yr)(Tg/yr) % (Tg/yr) % CO a CO1600 a CH a Aerosols390 e Black carbon 90 e a: Houghton et al., 1995 e: Scholes & Andreae, 2000
Space Applications Institute (jmg/Publi/Varese_2001/Seminar_Insubria.ppt) Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit What is a vegetation fire ? What are we looking at ?
Space Applications Institute (jmg/Publi/Varese_2001/Seminar_Insubria.ppt) Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit Fire on the ground Wet savanna - Cote d’Ivoire Tropical woodland - Northern Australia A narrow fire front running through the savanna
Space Applications Institute (jmg/Publi/Varese_2001/Seminar_Insubria.ppt) Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit Fire as seen from low altitude air survey Tropical woodland - Central African Republic A fire front + a burnt area + a smoke plume
Space Applications Institute (jmg/Publi/Varese_2001/Seminar_Insubria.ppt) Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit Fire as seen from low resolution satellite imagery Northern Australia - June 1st km x 550km SPOT-VEGETATION am NOAA-AVHRR 4 pm
Space Applications Institute (jmg/Publi/Varese_2001/Seminar_Insubria.ppt) Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit The use of satellite remote sensing see second part by P.A. Brivio file: Insubria_Brivio.ppt
Space Applications Institute (jmg/Publi/Varese_2001/Seminar_Insubria.ppt) Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit Short-term perspectives The Global Burnt Area 2000 initiative: GBA-2000 Mapping, from SPOT-VEGETATION S1 imagery, of the areas burnt globally during the year 2000 The WORLD FIRE WEB Network A system for globally mapping vegetation fires in near real-time, using the NOAA-AVHRR satellite
Space Applications Institute (jmg/Publi/Varese_2001/Seminar_Insubria.ppt) Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit GBA 2000: a network approach CSIRO(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 - 81W 44N - 55W (CRG) 62.5N-112W 57N-104.5W (CCRS) 18N - 93W 7N - 77W (NRI) 5S - 75W 20S - 45W (UTL) 17S - 21E 28S - 29E (NRI) 10S - 22E 28S - 42E (UTL) 18N - 18W E (CNR) 44N - 10W 36N - 0 (UTL) 11S - 125E 21S - 135E (CSIRO) 60N - 118E 48N - 140E (IFI) 68N - 45E 60N - 60E (IFI) 55N - 115E 40N - 135E (UTL) 10S - 125E 18S - 146E (GVM)
Space Applications Institute (jmg/Publi/Varese_2001/Seminar_Insubria.ppt) Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit Year 2001 The WORLD FIRE WEB Network 18 regional fire monitoring centres
Space Applications Institute (jmg/Publi/Varese_2001/Seminar_Insubria.ppt) Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit 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 ( ): burned areas, burned biomass and atmospheric emissions. Global Biogeochemical Cycles,Vol. 13, No. 04, p Brivio P. A. e J.-M. Grégoire, 1997, Gli incendi nella fascia tropicale del globo: aspetti metodologici nell'analisi dei dati da satellite. Rivista Italiana di Telerilevamento, n. 11, pp Dwyer E., et al., 1999, Characterization of the spatio-temporal patterns of global fire activity using satellite imagery for the period April 1992 to March 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 relative importance 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 burnt area mapping from optical, thermal and microwave satellite data. Publication of the European Commission, EUR EN, 74 pp. Stroppiana D., et al., The Global Fire Product: daily fire occurrence, from April 1992 to December 1993, derived from NOAA-AVHRR data. Int. J. of Remote Sensing, Vol. 21, No. 6/7, April 2000, Thank you to Luigi Boschetti CNR/Milanmapping burnt areas from geostationnary satellites Edward DywerSARMAPmapping fires from AVHRR Marta MaggiCNR/Milanmapping burnt areas from AVHRR and VGT data Simon PinnockJRC/Ispraresponsible World Fire Web network Daniela StroppianaJRC/Ispramapping burnt areas from VGT data and all the friends around the world who contribute to the World Fire Web and Global Burnt Area networks Some references