Understanding burn severity sensing in arctic tundra: Exploring vegetation indices, suboptimal assessment timing and the impact of increasing pixel size

International Journal of Remote Sensing

Volumn 32, Issue 22, 2011, Pages 7033-7056

  Boelman, Natalie T ^a   Rocha, Adrian V ^b   Shaver, Gaius R ^b  

^a International Research Institute for Climate and Society   (United States)

^b ECOSYSTEMS CENTER   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

INFRARED RADIATION; LANDFORMS; PIXELS; RADIOMETERS; REFLECTION; SATELLITE IMAGERY; SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS; TIMING CIRCUITS;

ENHANCED VEGETATION INDEX; LANDSAT THEMATIC MAPPER; MODERATE RESOLUTION IMAGING SPECTRORADIOMETER SENSORS; NORMALIZED DIFFERENCE VEGETATION INDEX; NORTH SLOPE OF ALASKA; SPATIAL HETEROGENEITY; SPECTRAL REFLECTANCES; SPECTRAL VEGETATION INDICES;

VEGETATION;

ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT; EXPLORATION; FIELD SURVEY; FIRE; LANDSAT THEMATIC MAPPER; LANDSCAPE; MODIS; NDVI; PIXEL; QUICKBIRD; SATELLITE IMAGERY; SPATIAL RESOLUTION; SPECTRAL REFLECTANCE; TUNDRA; VEGETATION DYNAMICS;

ALASKA; NORTH SLOPE; UNITED STATES;

EID: 82055186597     PISSN: 01431161     EISSN: 13665901     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01431161.2011.611187     Document Type: Article

References (89)

1. ABRAHAMSON, W.G., 1984, Post-fire recovery of Florida Lake Wales Ridge vegetation. American Journal of Botany, 71, pp. 9-21.
2. AICC (ALASKA INTERAGENCY COORDINATION CENTER), 2008, Available online at: http://fire.ak.blm.gov/
3. ALLEN, J.L. and SORBEL, B., 2008, Assessing the differenced Normalized Burn Ratio's ability to map burn severity in the boreal forest and tundra ecosystems of Alaska's national parks. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 17, pp. 463-475.
4. BOEGH, E., SOEGAARD, H., BROGE, N., HASAGER, C.B., JENSEN, N.O., SCHELDE, K. and THOMSEN, A., 2002, Airborne multispectral data for quantifying leaf area index, nitrogen concentration, and photosynthetic efficiency in agriculture. Remote Sensing of Environment, 81, pp. 179-193.
5. BOELMAN, N.T., STIEGLITZ, M., GRIFFIN, K.L. and SHAVER, G.R., 2005, Inter-annual variability of NDVI in response to long-term warming and fertilization in wet sedge and Tussock tundra. Oecologia, 143, pp. 588-597.
6. BOELMAN, N.T., STIEGLITZ, M., RUETH, H.M., SOMMERKORN, M., GRIFFIN, K.L., SHAVER, G.R. and GAMON, J.A., 2003, Response of NDVI, biomass, and ecosystem gas exchange to long-term warming and fertilization in wet sedge tundra. Oecologia, 135, pp. 414-421.
7. BOND, W.J. and MIDGLEY, J.J., 2003, The evolutionary ecology of sprouting in woody plants. International Journal of Plant Sciences, 164, pp. 103-114.
8. CHANDER, G., MARKHAM, B.L. and HELDER, D.L., 2009, Summary of current radiometric calibration coefficients for Landsat MSS, TM, ETM+, and EO-1 ALI sensors. Remote Sensing of Environment, 113, pp. 893-903.
9. COHEN, W.B. and GOWARD, S.N., 2004, Landsat's role in ecological applications of remote sensing. Bioscience, 54, pp. 535-545.
10. COLLINS, B.M., KELLY, M., VAN WAGTENDONK, J.W. and STEPHENS, S.L., 2007, Spatial patterns of large natural fires in Sierra Nevada wilderness areas. Landscape Ecology, 22, pp. 545-557.
11. COLWELL, J.E., 1974, Vegetation canopy reflectance. Remote Sensing of Environment, 3, pp. 175-183.
12. CONARD, S.G. and SOLOMON, A.M., 2008, Effects of wildland fire on regional and global carbon stocks in a changing environment. Developments in Environmental Science, 8, pp. 109-138.
13. DE SANTIS, A., ASNER, G.P., VAUGHAN, P.J. and KNAPP, D.E., 2010, Mapping burn severity and burning efficiency in California using simulation models and Landsat imagery. Remote Sensing of Environment, 114, pp. 1535-1545.
14. DIAZ-DELGADO, R., LLORETT, F. and PONS, X., 2003, Influence of fire severity on plant regeneration by means of remote sensing imagery. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 24, pp. 1751-1763.
15. DISSING, D. and VERBYLA, D.L., 2003, Spatial patterns of lightning strikes in interior Alaska and their relations to elevation and vegetation. Canadian Journal of Forest Research- Revue Canadienne De Recherche Forestiere, 33, pp. 770-782.
16. DUFFY, P.A., EPTING, J., GRAHAM, J.M., RUPP, T.S. and MCGUIRE, A.D., 2007, Analysis of Alaskan burn severity patterns using remotely sensed data. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 16, pp. 277-284.
17. ELVIDGE, C.D. and LYON, R.J.P., 1985, Influence of rock-soil spectral variation on the assessment of green biomass. Remote Sensing of Environment, 17, pp. 265-279.
18. EPTING, J., VERBYLA, D. and SORBEL, B., 2005, Evaluation of remotely sensed indices for assessing burn severity in interior Alaska using Landsat TM and ETM+. Remote Sensing of Environment, 96, pp. 328-339.
19. FOWLER, J.F. and SIEG, C.H., 2004, Postfire Mortality of Ponderosa Pine and Douglas-Fir: A Review of Methods to Predict Tree Death, General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-132 (Fort Collins, CO: USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station), 25 pp.
20. FRENCH, N.H.F., KASISCHKE, E.S., HALL, R.J., MURPHY, K.A., VERBYLA, D.L., HOY, E.E. and ALLEN, J.L., 2008, Using Landsat data to assess fire and burn severity in the North American boreal forest region: an overview and summary of results. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 17, pp. 443-462.
21. FULLER, R.M., GROOM, G.B. and JONES, A.R., 1994, The land cover map of Great Britain: an automated classification of Landsat Thematic Mapper data. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 60, pp. 553-562.
22. GALLO, K.P., DAUGHTRY, C.S.T. and BAUER, M.E., 1985, Spectral estimation of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation in corn canopies. Remote Sensing of Environment, 17, pp. 221-232.
23. GAMON, J.A., FIELD, C.B., ROBERTS, D.A., USTIN, S.L. and VALENTINI, R., 1993, Functional patterns in an annual grassland during an Aviris overflight. Remote Sensing of Environment, 44, pp. 239-253.
24. GOETZ, S.J., MACK, M.C., GURNEY, K.R., RANDERSON, J.T. and HOUGHTON, R.A., 2007, Ecosystem responses to recent climate change and fire disturbance at northern high latitudes: observations and model results contrasting northern Eurasia and North America. Environmental Research Letters, 2, 045031, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/2/4/045031.
25. HALL, D.K., ORMSBY, J.P., JOHNSON, L. and BROWN, J., 1980, Landsat digital analysis of the initial recovery of burned tundra at Kokolik river, Alaska. Remote Sensing of Environment, 10, pp. 263-272.
26. HIGUERA, P.E., BRUBAKER, L.B., ANDERSON, P.M., BROWN, T.A., KENNEDY, A.T. and HU, F.S., 2008, Frequent fires in ancient shrub tundra: implications of paleorecords for arctic environmental change. Plos One, 3, e0001744, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001744.
27. HOY, E.E., FRENCH, N.H.F., TURETSKY, M.R., TRIGG, S.N. and KASISCHKE, E.S., 2008, Evaluating the potential of Landsat TM/ETM+ for assessing fire severity in Alaskan black spruce forests. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 17, pp. 500-514.
28. HU, F.S., HIGUERA, P.E., WALSH, J.E., CHAPMAN, W.L., DUFFY, P.A., BRUBAKER, L.B. and M.L. CHIPMAN, 2010, Tundra burning in Alaska: linkages to climatic change and sea-ice retreat. Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences, 115, G04002, doi:10.1029/2009JG001270.
29. HUDAK, A.T., MORGAN, P., BOBBITT, M.J., SMITH, A.M.S., LEWIS, S.A., LENTILE, L.B., ROBICHAUD, P.R., CLARK, J.T. and MCKINLEY, R.A., 2007, The relationship of multispectral satellite imagery to immediate fire effects. Journal of Fire Ecology, 3, pp. 64-90.
30. HUETE, A., 1998, A soil-adjusted vegetation index (SAVI). Remote Sensing of Environment, 25, pp. 295-309.
31. HUETE, A.R. and JACKSON, R.D., 1988, Soil and atmosphere influences on the spectra of partial canopies. Remote Sensing of Environment, 25, pp. 89-105.
32. HUETE, A.R., JACKSON, R.D. and POST, D.F., 1985, Spectral response of a plant canopy with different soil backgrounds. Remote Sensing of Environment, 17, pp. 37-53.
33. JANDT, R., JOLY, K., MEYERS, C.R. and RACINE, C., 2008, Slow recovery of lichen on burned caribou winter range in Alaska tundra: potential influences of climate warming and other disturbance factors. Arctic Antarctic and Alpine Research, 40, pp. 89-95.
34. JIANG, Z.Y., HUETE, A.R., DIDAN, K. and MIURA, T., 2008, Development of a two-band enhanced vegetation index without a blue band. Remote Sensing of Environment, 112, pp. 3833-3845.
35. JONES, B.M., KOLDEN, C.A., JANDT, R., ABATZOGLOU, J.T., URBAN, F. and ARP, C.D., 2009, Fire behavior, weather, and burn severity of the 2007 Anaktuvuk river tundra fire, North Slope, Alaska. Arctic Antarctic and Alpine Research, 41, pp. 309-316.
36. KEELEY, J.E., 2009, Fire intensity, fire severity and burn severity: a brief review and suggested usage. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 18, pp. 116-126.
37. KEY, C., 2006, Ecological and sampling constraints on defining landscape fire severity. Fire Ecology, 2, pp. 34-59.
38. KEY, C.H. and BENSON, N.C., 1999, Measuring and remote sensing of burn severity: the CBI and NBR. Poster abstract. In Proceedings of Joint Fire Science Conference and Workshop, 15-17 June 1999, L.F. Neuenschwander and K.C. Ryan (Eds.), Boise, ID (Boise, ID: University of Idaho and International Association of Wildland Fire), Vol. II, 284 pp.
39. KEY, C.H. and BENSON, N., 2002, Landscape Assessment. Fire effects monitoring and inventory protocol. Available online at: http://frames.nbii.gov/portal/server.pt/community/firemon/286
40. KEY, C.H. and BENSON, N.C., 2006, Landscape Assessment: Sampling and Analysis Methods, General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-164-CD (Ogden, UT: USDA Forest Service).
41. KOKALY, R.F., ROCKWELL, B.W., HAIRE, S.L. and KING, T.V.V., 2007, Characterization of postfire surface cover, soils, and burn severity at the Cerro Grande Fire, New Mexico, using hyperspectral and multispectral remote sensing. Remote Sensing of Environment, 106, pp. 305-325.
42. KOUTSIAS, N. and KARTERIS, M., 1998, Logistic regression modelling of multitemporal Thematic Mapper data for burned area mapping. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 19, pp. 3499-3514.
43. KRUSKAL, W.H., 1952, A nonparametric test for the several sample problem. Annals of Mathematical Statistics, 23, pp. 525-540.
44. LANDIS, J.R. and KOCH, G.G., 1977, The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics, 33, pp. 159-174.
45. LENTILE, L., HOLDEN, Z., SMITH, A., FALKOWSKI, M., HUDAK, A., MORGAN, P., LEWIS, S., GESSLER, P. and BENSON, N., 2006, Remote sensing techniques to assess active fire characteristics and post-fire effects. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 15, pp. 319-345.
46. LOPEZ-GARCIA, M. and CASELLES, V., 1991, Mapping burns and natural reforestation using Thematic Mapper data. Geocarto International, 6, pp. 31-37.
47. MARKHAM, B.L., 1985, The Landsat sensor's spatial responses. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 23, pp. 864-875.
48. MEDLER, M.J. and YOOL, S.R., 1997, Improving Thematic Mapper based classification of wildfire induced vegetation mortality. Geocarto International, 12, pp. 49-58.
49. MILLER, J.D. and THODE, A.E., 2007, Quantifying burn severity in a heterogeneous landscape with a relative version of the delta normalized burn ratio (dNBR). Remote Sensing of Environment, 109, pp. 66-80.
50. MILLER, J.D. and YOOL, S.R., 2002, Mapping forest post-fire canopy consumption in several overstory types using multi-temporal Landsat TM and ETM data. Remote Sensing of Environment, 82, pp. 481-496.
51. MILNE, A.K., 1986, The use of remote sensing in mapping and monitoring vegetation change associated with bushfire events in Eastern Australia. Geocarto International, 1, pp. 25-35.
52. MORGAN, P., HARDY, C.C., SWETNAM, T.W., ROLLINS, M.G. and LONG, D.G., 2001, Mapping fire regimes across time and space. Understanding coarse and fine-scale fire patterns. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 10, pp. 329-342.
53. MURPHY, K.A., REYNOLDS, J.H. and KOLTUN, J.M., 2008, Evaluating the ability of the differenced normalized burn ratio (dNBR) to predict ecologically significant burn severity in Alaskan boreal forests. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 17, pp. 490-499.
54. ODION, D.C. and HANSON, C.T., 2006, Fire severity in conifer forests of the Sierra Nevada, California. Ecosystems, 9, pp. 1177-1189.
55. PYNE, S.J., ANDREWS, P.L. and LAVEN, R.D., 1996, Introduction to Wildland Fire, Final Report MMF Practices - 3015, Canada (New York: John Wiley & Sons).
56. QI, J., CHEHBOUNI, A., HUETE, A.R., KERR, Y.H. and SOROOSHIAN, S., 1994, A modified soil adjusted vegetation index. Remote Sensing of Environment, 48, pp. 119-126.
57. RACINE, C., JANDT, R., MEYERS, C. and DENNIS, J., 2004, Tundra fire and vegetation change along a hillslope on the Seward Peninsula, Alaska, USA. Arctic Antarctic and Alpine Research, 36, pp. 1-10.
58. RACINE, C.H., DENNIS, J.G. and PATTERSON, W.A., 1985, Tundra fire regimes in the Noatak River Watershed, Alaska - 1956-83. Arctic, 38, pp. 194-200.
59. RACINE, C.H., JOHNSON, L.A. and VIERECK, L.A., 1987, Patterns of vegetation recovery after tundra fires in Northwestern Alaska, USA. Arctic and Alpine Research, 19, pp. 461-469.
60. REEVE, N. and TOUMI, R., 1999, Lightning activity as an indicator of climate change. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 125, pp. 893-903.
61. RICHARDSON, A.J. and MILNE, A.K., 1983, Mapping fire burns and vegetation regeneration using principal components analysis. In Proceedings of IGARSS'83 Symposium, San Francisco, CA, pp. 51-56.
62. ROCHA, A.V. and SHAVER, G.R., 2009, Advantages of a two band EVI calculated fromsolar and photosynthetically active radiation fluxes. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 149, pp. 1560-1563.
63. ROCHA, A.V. and SHAVER, G.R., 2011, Burn severity influences post-fire CO2 exchange in arctic tundra. Ecological Applications, 21, 477-489.
64. ROGAN, J. and YOOL, S.R., 2001, Mapping fire-induced vegetation depletion in the Peloncillo Mountains, Arizona and New Mexico. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 22, pp. 3101-3121.
65. ROUSE, J.W., HAAS, R.H., SCHELL, J.A. and DEERING, D.W., 1974, Monitoring vegetation systems in the Great Plains with ERTS, In Proceedings of the Third Earth Resources Technology Satellite-1 Symposium, NASA, Greenbelt, MD, pp. 301-317.
66. ROY, D.R., BOSCHETTI, L. and TRIGG, S.N., 2006, Remote sensing of fire severity: assessing the performance of the normalized burn ratio. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 3, pp. 112-116.
67. SHAVER, G.R. and CHAPIN, F.S., 1991, Production - biomass relationships and element cycling in contrasting arctic vegetation types. Ecological Monographs, 61, pp. 1-31.
68. SIEGERT, F., RUECKER, G., HINRICHS, A. and HOFFMANN, A.A., 2001, Increased damage from fires in logged forests during droughts caused by El Nino. Nature, 414, pp. 437-440.
69. SMALL, C., 2001, Estimation of urban vegetation abundance by spectral mixture analysis. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 22, pp. 1305-1334.
70. SMITH, A.M.S. and WOOSTER, M.J., 2005, Remote classification of head and backfire types from MODIS fire radiative power observations. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 14, pp. 249-254.
71. SOVEREL, N.O., PERRAKIS, D.D.B. and COOPS, N.C., 2010, Estimating burn severity from Landsat dNBR and RdNBR indices across western Canada. Remote Sensing of Environment, 114, pp. 1896-1909.
72. STREET, L.E., SHAVER, G.R., WILLIAMS, M. and VAN WIJK, M.T., 2007, What is the relationshipbetween changes in canopy leaf area and changes in photosynthetic CO2 flux in arctic ecosystems? Journal of Ecology, 95, pp. 139-150.
73. TAPE, K., STURM, M. and RACINE, C., 2006, The evidence for shrub expansion in Northern Alaska and the Pan-Arctic. Global Change Biology, 12, pp. 686-702.
74. THOMPSON, J.R., SPIES, T.A. and GANIO, L.M., 2007, Reburn severity in managed and unmanaged vegetation in a large wildfire. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104, pp. 10743-10748.
75. TRIGG, S. and FLASSE, S., 2000, Characterising the spectral-temporal response of burned savannah using in situ spectroradiometry and infrared thermometry. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 21, pp. 3161-3168.
76. TUCKER, C.J., DREGNE, H.E. and NEWCOMB, W.W., 1991, Expansion and contraction of the Sahara Desert from 1980 to 1990. Science, 253, pp. 299-301.
77. TUCKER, C.J., ELGIN, J.H., MCMURTREY, J.E. and FAN, C.J., 1979, Monitoring corn and soybean crop development with hand-held radiometer spectral data. Remote Sensing of Environment, 8, pp. 237-248.
78. VAN WAGTENDONK, J.W., ROOT, R.R. and KEY, C.H., 2004, Comparison of AVIRIS and Landsat ETM+ detection capabilities for burn severity. Remote Sensing of Environment, 92, pp. 397-408.
79. VERAVERBEKE, S., LHERMITTE, S., VERSTRAETEN, W.W. and GOOSENS, R., 2010, The temporal dimension of differenced normalized burn ratio (dNBR) fire/burn severity studies: the case of the large 2007 Peloponnese wildfires in Greece. Remote Sensing of Environment, 114, pp. 2548-2563.
80. VERBYLA, D., KASISCHKE, E. and HOY, E., 2008, Seasonal and topographic effects on estimating fire severity from Landsat TM/ETM+ data. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 17, pp. 527-534.
81. VERBYLA, D. and LORD, R., 2008, Estimating post-fire organic soil depth in the Alaskan boreal forest using the normalized burn ratio. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 29, pp. 3845-3853.
82. VERBYLA, D.L. and BOLES, S.H., 2000, Bias in land cover change estimates due to misregistration. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 21, pp. 3553-3560.
83. VOGELMAN, J.E., HOWARD, S.M., YANG, L., LARSON, C.R., WYLIE, B.K. and VAN DRIEL, N., 2001, Completion of the 1990s National Land Cover Data set for the conterminous United States for Landsat Thematic Mapper data and ancillary data sources. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 67, pp. 650-662.
84. WARD, D.E., HAO, W.M., SUSOTT, R.A., BABBITT, R.E., SHEA, R.W., KAUFFMAN, J.B. and JUSTICE, C.O., 1996, Effect of fuel composition on combustion efficiency and emission factors for African savanna ecosystems. Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, 101, pp. 23569-23576.
85. WHITE, J.D., RYAN, K.C., KEY, C.C. and RUNNING, S.W., 1996, Remote sensing of forest fire severity and vegetation recovery. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 6, pp. 125-136.
86. WOODCOCK, C.E. and STRAHLER, A.H., 1987, The factor of scale in remote-sensing. Remote Sensing of Environment, 21, pp. 311-332.
87. WOOKEY, P.A., AERTS, R., BARDGETT, R.D., BAPTIST, F., BRATHEN, K.A., CORNELISSEN, J.H.C., GOUGH, L., HARTLEY, I.P., HOPKINS, D.W., LAVOREL, S. and SHAVER, G.R., 2009, Ecosystem feedbacks and cascade processes: understanding their role in the responses of Arctic and alpine ecosystems to environmental change. Global Change Biology, 15, pp. 1153-1172.
88. ZAR, H.J., 1999, Biostatistical Analysis (New York: Prentice-Hall).
89. ZHU, Z., KEY, C., OHLEN, D. and BENSON, N., 2006, Evaluate Sensitivities of Burn-Severity Mapping Algorithms for Different Ecosystems and Fire Histories in the United States, Final Report to the Joint Fire Science Program: Project JFSP 01-1-4-12 (Sioux Falls, SD: US Department of the Interior).