Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
4460039 Remote Sensing of Environment 2009 9 Pages PDF
Abstract

Burn severity estimation is a key factor in the post-fire management. Previous studies using remotely sensed data to retrieve burn severity, as measured by the Composite Burn Index (CBI), have found inconsistencies, since spectral indices work well in some ecosystems but not in others. These inconsistencies may be caused by the lack of spectral uniqueness in the CBI definition, or by the performance of the spectral indices used. This paper analyses the former aspect, using a simulation analysis to study the relationships between the CBI and reflectance. Subsequently, a modified version of this index, called GeoCBI, is proposed to improve the retrieval of burn severity from remotely sensed data. GeoCBI takes into account the fraction of cover (FCOV) of the different vegetation strata used to compute the CBI. Moreover, it also includes the changes in the leaf area index (LAI) for the intermediate and tall tree strata (D+E). Field and simulation results show that GeoCBI is more consistently related to spectral reflectance than CBI for different ranges of burn severities, while keeping its ecological meaning.

Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Earth and Planetary Sciences Computers in Earth Sciences
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