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A multi-scale assessment of fire scar mapping in the Great Victoria Desert of Western Australia
Journal article   Peer reviewed

A multi-scale assessment of fire scar mapping in the Great Victoria Desert of Western Australia

J. Ruscalleda-Alvarez, D. Moro and R. van Dongen
International Journal of Wildland Fire, Just Accepted
2021
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Abstract

Fire management is increasingly acknowledged as a necessary tool to maintain diversity in desert environments such as the Great Victoria Desert of Australia, but it needs to be informed by accurate fire history data. We compared and assessed the utility of Landsat and MODIS-derived burnt area mapping, 30 and 250 m resolution respectively, for sub-regional, landscape and habitat scale management, using Sentinel-2-derived, 10 m resolution, burnt area mapping as a reference, to determine the most appropriate product to support land management planning. At the landscape scale, Landsat had significantly lower average omission and commission error (3.4% and 8%) compared to MODIS (42.2% and 19.9%). At the habitat scale, Landsat burnt area percentage was more accurate, in plots of 500 m x 500 m (RMSE 0.3% to 8.6%), but offered lower accuracy when estimating partially burnt habitat plots of 120 m x 120 m (RMSE 14.2% to 23.9%). Only Landsat-derived fire scar mapping provided enough detail to produce reliable fire history maps to inform fire management and biodiversity conservation operations at a sub-regional scale, landscape scale and a habitat scale of 500 m by 500m.

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#13 Climate Action
#15 Life on Land

Source: InCites

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InCites Highlights

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Citation topics
3 Agriculture, Environment & Ecology
3.40 Forestry
3.40.1598 Wildfire Dynamics
Web Of Science research areas
Forestry
ESI research areas
Plant & Animal Science
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