Relative suitability of indices derived from Landsat ETM+ and SPOT 5 for detecting fire severity in sagebrush steppe

J. Norton, N. Glenn, M. Germino, K. Weber, S. Seefeldt

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

35 Scopus citations

Abstract

Remote sensing indices of burn area and fire severity have been developed and tested for forest ecosystems, but not sparsely vegetated, desert shrub-steppe in which large wildfires are a common occurrence and a major issue for land management. We compared the performance of remote sensing indices for detecting burn area and fire severity with extensive ground-based cover assessments made before and after the prescribed burning of a 3 km2 shrub-steppe area. The remote sensing indices were based on either Landsat 7 ETM+ or SPOT 5 data, using either single or multiple dates of imagery. The indices delineating burned versus unburned areas had better overall, User, and Producer's accuracies than indices delineating levels of fire severity. The Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI) calculated from SPOT had the greatest overall accuracy (100%) in delineating burned versus unburned areas. The relative differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (RdNBR) using Landsat ETM+ provided the highest accuracies (73% overall accuracy) for delineating fire severity. Though SPOT's spatial resolution likely conferred advantages for determining burn boundaries, the higher spectral resolution (particularly band 7, 2.21 μm) of Landsat ETM+ may be necessary for detecting differences in fire severity in sparsely vegetated shrub-steppe.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)360-367
Number of pages8
JournalInternational Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation
Volume11
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2009

Keywords

  • Burn severity
  • Land cover
  • Rangeland
  • Satellite
  • Spectral sensitivity

EGS Disciplines

  • Earth Sciences

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