Remote Sensing, Vol. 14, Pages 3122: Evaluating a New Relative Phenological Correction and the Effect of Sentinel-Based Earth Engine Compositing Approaches to Map Fire Severity and Burned Area - June 29, 2022 at 06:16AM

Remote Sensing, Vol. 14, Pages 3122: Evaluating a New Relative Phenological Correction and the Effect of Sentinel-Based Earth Engine Compositing Approaches to Map Fire Severity and Burned Area

Remote Sensing doi: 10.3390/rs14133122

Authors:
Adrián Israel Silva-Cardoza
Daniel José Vega-Nieva
Jaime Briseño-Reyes
Carlos Ivan Briones-Herrera
Pablito Marcelo López-Serrano
José Javier Corral-Rivas
Sean A. Parks
Lisa M. Holsinger

The remote sensing of fire severity and burned area is fundamental in the evaluation of fire impacts. The current study aimed to: (i) compare Sentinel-2 (S2) spectral indices to predict field-observed fire severity in Durango, Mexico; (ii) evaluate the effect of the compositing period (1 or 3 months), techniques (average or minimum), and phenological correction (constant offset, c, against a novel relative phenological correction, rc) on fire severity mapping, and (iii) determine fire perimeter accuracy. The Relative Burn Ratio (RBR), using S2 bands 8a and 12, provided the best correspondence with field-based fire severity (FBS). One-month rc minimum composites showed the highest correspondence with FBS (R2 = 0.83). The decrease in R2 using 3 months rather than 1 month was ≥0.05 (0.05–0.15) for c composites and <0.05 (0.02–0.03) for rc composites. Furthermore, using rc increased the R2 by 0.05–0.09 and 0.10–0.15 for the 3-month RBR and dNBR compared to the corresponding c composites. Rc composites also showed increases of up to 0.16–0.22 and 0.08–0.11 in kappa values and overall accuracy, respectively, in mapping fire perimeters against c composites. These results suggest a promising potential of the novel relative phenological correction to be systematically applied with automated algorithms to improve the accuracy and robustness of fire severity and perimeter evaluations.