Prototyping an artificial neural network for burned area mapping on a regional scale in Mediterranean areas using MODIS images

Each year thousands of ha of forest land are affected by forest fires in Southern European countries such as Spain. Burned area maps are a valuable instrument for designing prevention and recovery policies. Remote sensing has increasingly become the most widely used tool for this purpose on regional and global scales, where a large variety of techniques and data has been applied. This paper proposes a semiautomatic method for burned area mapping on a regional scale in Mediterranean areas (the Iberian Peninsula has been used as a study case). A Multi-layer Perceptron Network (MLPN) has been designed and applied to MODIS/Terra Surface Reflectance Daily L2G Global 500m SIN Grid multitemporal composite monthly images. The compositing criterion was based on maximum surface temperature. The research covered a six year period (2001–2006) from June to September, when most of the forest fires occur. The resulting burned area maps have been validated using official fire perimeters and compared with MODIS Collection 5 Burned Area Product (MCD45A1). The MLPN shown as an effective method, with a commission error of 29.1%, in the classification of the burned areas, while the omission error was of 14.9%. The results were compared with the MCD45A1 product, which had a slightly higher commission error (30.2%) and a considerably higher omission error (26.2%), indicating a high underestimation of the burned area.

► We tested a multi-layer perceptron network for mapping burned areas using MODIS data.
► Method applied to Iberian Peninsula, 2001–2006, but with potential for extrapolation.
► Contribution to the validation of the MCD45A1 in a Mediterranean Ecosystem.
► It is obtained a better commission and omission errors balance than MCD45A1.