D - F
FIRE/MTV
Background and rationale: At some time or another most of the world's terrestrial ecosystems are directly affected by fire. Though some fires occur naturally (wildfires), by far the greater part are the result of human activities. Much of the world's tropical savannahs are periodically burned; in Africa alone around 75% of the savannah burns annually, an area of more than 300 millions hectares. Forest fires, savannahs fires, burning of fuel wood, charcoal production and burning of agricultural wastes together consume an estimated 8680 million tons of dry plant material per year. The consequences of biomass burning are extremely diverse. It affects atmospheric chemistry, climate, vegetation distribution and, of course human avtivities. The ecological, environmental and economic effects of biomass burning occur across all scales, from the local to global, yet systematic documentation of global biomass burning patterns and history are not available. This lack of information is keenly felt, both by the international scientific community, and by policy makers. The research project FIre in global Resource and Environmental monitoring (FIRE) has been initiated in 1994, by the Monitoring of Tropical Vegetation unit (MTV) of the Commission of the European Union Joint Research Centre, in order to adress such issues during a 4 years period, with a key objective being the documenting of biomass burning patterns for the entire tropical belt and the analysis of such patterns in relation to land use/land cover dynamics. An integrated approach to biomass burning studies: At the 1991 Dahlem Workshop on Global Changes in the Perspective of the Past, a proposal was made to integrate established fire behaviour and emission models into a new approach, where ecosystem characterisation, in terms of fuel situation and satellite identification of fire occurrence are the starting point. The FIRE project is concentrating in particular on those acpects of the Dahlem model driven by satellite data. Satellite observations as main source of information: Earth observation from space provides systematic and consistent measurements of a series of parameters related to fire and fire impacts. Fire detection from space currently relies on visible and thermal information from sensors on the Meteosat, Landsat, SPOT and NOAA satellites. These systems together cover a range of spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions which on the one hand permit detailed study of individual fires, and on the other allow regular monitoring of the incidence of fire for entire continents. The Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) on the NOAA satellites is the main source of data for the studies done by the FIRE project. Historical archives of these data, on a daily basis at 4 km resolution (the Global Area Coverage data, GAC), extend back to 1981: the FIRE project has done the processing and analysis of these AVHRR-GAC data for the african continent. The resulting data sets are used for continental scale vegetation studies, more specifically for detection of land cover changes, and for documenting spatio- temporal variations in burning patterns for the continent of Africa over the last decade. More complete documentation of burning patterns for the whole tropical belt has been initiated by the FIRE project using the global 1-km resolution AVHRR image archive established at the U.S. satellite data archive, Sioux Falls, under the auspices of the IGBP. Analysis of these data has required considerable development of processing environments: An automatic method for global detection of vegetation fires, which adjusts as necessary to accomodate seasonal and spatial factors, has been developed and applied succesfully for the processing and analysis of one week of daily global data (14 Gb of data). The FIRE project is currently extending the processing to six months of daily 1-km global data. In the same time, detection and assessment of burnt areas are becoming key issues in the overall research effort of the FIRE project. Data provided by the Along Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR-1) onboard the ERS satellite, are being used to quantify the extent of burnt surfaces. Last, a mobile AVHRR data receiving station is used by the FIRE project, in the framework of ground experimental campaigns, to validate fire detection methods for different tropical ecosystems, and to provide input to fire management programmes at country level. Assembling and use of consistent data sets on BB dynamics adapted to the modelling of soil-vegetation-atmosphere exchanges and their evolution in time The FIRE project is involved in co-operative research related to the role of biomass burning in tropospheric and precipitations chemistry, forest monitoring, land cover changes. As such a great effort is done to assemble and format the fire related informations, as derived from remote sensing, in consistent data sets adapted to the modelling of soil-vegetation- atmosphere exchanges and their evolution in time: such data sets are currently sustaining the FIRE project contributions to international experiments among which the IGBP-IGAC activity EXPRESSO (EXPeriment for Regional Sources and Sinks of Oxydants) and to a research activity of the European Union on the modelling of emissions of black carbon aerosols at global scale. Moreover the FIRE project is involved in a co-operative research with the UE's TREES (TRopical Ecosystem and Environment observation from Space) project: the detection of fires is an essential part of the alarm system under development, in the TREES project, to pinpoint zones of active deforestation. References: Gregoire J-M., 1993, Description quantitative des regimes de feu en zone soudanienne d'Afrique de l'Ouest. SECHERESSE no. 1, vol. 4, mars 1993, 37-45 Gregoire J-M., Belward A.S. et Kennedy P., 1993. Dynamiques de saturation du signal dans la bande 3 du senseur AVHRR: Handicap majeur ou source d'information pour la surveillance de l'environnement en milieu soudano-guineen d'Afrique de l'Ouest ? International Journal of Remote Sensing, 1993, Vol. 14, No. 11, 2079-2095 Belward A.S., Gregoire J-M., D'Souza G., Trigg S., Hawkes M., Brustet J-M., Sera D., Tireford J-L., Charlot J-M. and Vuattoux R., 1993, In-Situ, real time fire detection using NOAA/AVHRR data. proceedings of the VI AVHRR Data User's Meeting, Belgirate, Italy, 29th June - 2nd July 1993, published by EUMETSAT, Darmstadt, Germany, EUM P 12, ISSN 1015 9576, 333-339 Belward A.S., Kennedy P.J., and Gregoire J-M., 1994. The limitations and potential of AVHRR GAC data for continental scale fire studies. Int. J. Remote Sensing, 1994, Vol. 15, No. 11, 2215-2234 Kennedy P.J., Belward A.S., and Gregoire J-M., 1994. An improved approach to fire monitoring in West Africa using AVHRR data. Int. J. Remote Sensing, 1994, Vol. 15, No. 11, 2235-2255 Malingreau J.P., and Belward A.S., 1994, Recent activities in the European Community for the creation and analysis of global AVHRR data sets. Int. J. Remote Sensing, 1994, vol. 15, no. 17, pp. 3397-3416 Brivio P.A., Gregoire J-M., Lefeivre B., and Ober G., 1994. Use of the rose-diagram method for vegetation fire patterns analysis at regional scale in Africa. 14th Int. CODATA Conf. "Data knowledge in a changing world", Chambery, France, 18-22 September 1994. Koffi B., J-M.Gregoire, G.Mahe and J-P.Lacaux, 1995, Remote sensing of bush fires dynamics in Central Africa from 1984 to 1988: analysis in relation to regional vegetation and pluviometric patterns. Atmospheric Research 39 (1995) 179-200 Belward A.S., Hollifield A., and James M., 1995, The potential of the NASA GAC Pathfinder product for the creation of global thematic data sets: the case of biomass burning patterns Int. J. Remote Sensing, 1995, Letter RES100942, p.9 Koffi B., Gregoire J-M., Brivio P.A., et Lacaux J-P., 1995. Teledetection satellitaire et chimie des pluies: Deux approches complementaires pour l'etude de l'impact des feux de vegetation sur le contenu chimique de la troposphere en region tropicale. Compte-rendus Seminaire "IGAC-DEBITS -Africa (IDAF): dry and wet depositions in Africa", Yamoussoukro, Cote d'Ivoire, 5-8 decembre 1994 , p. 4, WMO, IGBP, ENRICH, MEDIAS-France, Avril 1995 Eva H, Belward A.S., Gregoire J-M., Moula M., Brustet J-M., Janodet E. and Viovy N., 1995, The application of Along Track Scanning Radiometer data to Burnt Area mapping in different savannah ecosystems in Central Africa. Proceedings of the meteorological satellite data user's conference, Winchester, UK, EUMETSAT, 4th to 8th Sep. 1995 Ehrlich D., Gregoire J-M., Eva H., Janodet E., and Koffi B., 1995, Fire detection, land cover characterization and burnt area estimation in the savannah-forest transition zone of Central Africa. Publication of the European Communities, EUR 16314 EN, Brussels.Luxembourg, 1995, pp. 72 Gregoire J-M., 1995, FIRE: FIre in global Resource and Environmental monitoring A project of the European Commission. MEDIAS Newsletter, no. 7, aout 1995, pp. 13-14 Brivio P.A., Gregoire J-M., Koffi B., and Ober G., 1995, An automatic clustering technique applied to the study of vegetation fire patterns distribution in the African continent. Proceeding IGARSS,95 Quantitative remote sensing for science and applications, Vol. 1, pp. 112-114, Firenze, 10-14 July 1995. Brivio P.A., Ober G., Koffi B., and Gregoire J-M., 1995, Techniques for spatio-temporal analysis of vegetation fires in the tropical belt of Africa. in Global Process Monitoring and Remote Sensing of the Ocean and Sea Ice, Paris France 25-28 September 1995, Deering D.W. and Gudmandsen P. Editors, Proceedings EUROPTO Series SPIE Vol. 2586, 162-171, 1995 Barbosa P., and Gregoire J-M., 1995, Mapping of burnt surfaces at continental scale. A methodological approach for the analysis of NOAA/AVHRR/GAC time series. EARSeL Workshop on Remote sensing and GIS applications to forest fire management, Universidad de Alcala de Henares, Spain, 7th - 9th September 1995, 53-57 Jones S., 1995, Spatio-temporal distribution of vegetation fire in continental Southeast Asia as monitored by 1 km AVHRR data. IGBP-DIS Workshop on Global Fire Monitoring, JRC, Ispra, October 17-19, 1995, IGBP-Global Change Report, Stockolm, in press 1996. Malingreau J.P., and Dwyer E., 1995, A framework for the preparation and analysis of the Global Fire Product. IGBP-DIS Workshop on Global Fire Monitoring, JRC, Ispra, October 17-19, 1995, IGBP-Global Change Report, Stockolm, in press 1996. Malingreau J.P., Leysen M., and Degrandi F., 1995, Detecting and measuring burn scars in tropical vegetation using ERS-1 SAR data. IGBP-DIS Workshop on Global Fire Monitoring, JRC, Ispra, October 17-19, 1995, IGBP-Global Change Report, Stockolm, in press 1996. Eva H., 1995, Along Track Scanning Radiometer data fro burnt area mapping. IGBP-DIS Workshop on Global Fire Monitoring, JRC, Ispra, October 17-19, 1995, IGBP-Global Change Report, Stockolm, in press 1996. Eva H., and Flasse S., 1995, A comparison of contextual and threshold active fire detection algorithms. IGBP-DIS Workshop on Global Fire Monitoring, JRC, Ispra, October 17-19, 1995, IGBP-Global Change Report, Stockolm, in press 1996. Dwyer E., and Malingreau J.P., 1995, Global Fire Product. IGBP-DIS Workshop on Global Fire Monitoring, JRC, Ispra, October 17-19, 1995, IGBP-Global Change Report, Stockolm, in press 1996. Barbosa P., and Gregoire J-M., 1995, Mapping of burnt surfaces at continental scale. The potential of NOAA/AVHRR/GAC time series. IGBP-DIS Workshop on Global Fire Monitoring, JRC, Ispra, October 17-19, 1995, IGBP-Global Change Report, Stockolm, in press 1996. Gregoire J-M., 1995, Use of AVHRR data for the study of vegetation fires in Africa: Fire management perspectives. EURO COURSES Remote Sensing Volume 5, Advances in the use of AVHRR data for land applications, edited by D'Souza G., Belward A.S. and Malingreau J-P., p. 469, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995, 310-334 Malingreau J-P., and Gregoire J-M., 1996, Developing a global vegetation fire monitoring system for global change studies: current possibilities and perspectives. AGU Conference on "Biomass Burning and Global Change", Williamsburg, Virginia, USA, March 13-17 1995, in press 1996 B.Koffi, J-M.Gregoire, H.D. Eva, 1996, Satellite monitoring of vegetation fires on a multi-annual basis at continental scale, in Africa. in proceedings of the AGU Conference "Biomass Burning and Global Change", Williamsburg, Virginia, USA, March 13-17 1995, J. Levine editor, MIT Press, in press 1996. Moula M., Brustet J.M., Fontan J., Eva H., and Gregoire J-M., 1996, Contribution of Spread-Fire Model in the Study of Savannah Fires. AGU Conference on "Biomass Burning and Global Change", Williamsburg, Virginia, USA, March 13-17 1995, J. Levine editor, MIT Press, in press 1996. Cooke W.F., Koffi B., and Gregoire J-M., 1996, Seasonality of vegetation fires in Africa from remote sensing data and application to a global chemistry model. Journal of Geophysical Research, 101 (D15), 21051 - 21065, 1996. Koffi B., 1995, The continental fire product for Africa as derived from NOAA-AVHRR-GAC images - Definition and methods. JRC Technical Note no. I.96.04, p. 20, January 96 Koffi B., Koffi E., and Gregoire J.-M., [1996]. Atlas of fire seasonality and its interannual variability for the African continent. Publication of the European Commission, EUR 16407, Luxembourg, p.20, 1996. Eva H., and Gregoire J-M. [1996]. Regional Burnt Area Detection with ERS-1 Along Track Scanning Radiometer Data. proceedings E.G.S. Annual Meeting - Session OA19: Biomass Burning, European Geophysical Society, La Haye, Pays-Bas, 6-10 mai 1996, in press. Brivio P.A., Gregoire J-M., Lefeivre B., and Ober G., 1996. Use of the rose-diagram method for vegetation fire patterns analysis at regional scale in Africa. in "Geoscience and Water Resources: Environmental Data Modeling". C. Bardinet and J.J. Royer (eds), Springer-Verlag. in press, 1996. Gregoire J-M., Barbosa P., Dwyer E., Eva H., Jones S., Koffi B., Malingreau J.P., 1996. Vegetation fire research at the Monitoring Tropical Vegetation Unit: Product availability - June 1996. Publication of the European Commission, EUR 16433 EN, Brussels.Luxembourg, June 1996, pp. 84. Project Contact: J-M. Gregoire Monitoring Tropical Vegetation Unit Space Applications Institute Joint Research Center of the European Commission, TP. 440, 21020 ISPRA, ITALY. Tel: (39) 332 78 92 15 / 9830. Fax: (39) 332 78 90 73. E-mail: jean-marie.gregoire@jrc.it