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Type: Journal Article
Author(s): Christopher William Smith; Santosh Panda; Uma S. Bhatt; Franz J. Meyer
Publication Date: 2021

In Alaska the current wildfire fuel map products were generated from low spatial (30 m) and spectral resolution (11 bands) Landsat 8 satellite imagery which resulted in map products that not only lack the granularity but also have insufficient accuracy to be effective in fire and fuel management at a local scale. In this study we used higher spatial and spectral resolution AVIRIS-NG hyperspectral data (acquired as part of the NASA ABoVE project campaign) to generate boreal forest vegetation and fire fuel maps. Based on our field plot data, random forest classified images derived from 304 AVIRIS-NG bands at Viereck IV level (Alaska Vegetation Classification) had an 80% accuracy compared to the 33% accuracy of the LANDFIRE’s Existing Vegetation Type (EVT) product derived from Landsat 8. Not only did our product more accurately classify fire fuels but was also able to identify 20 dominant vegetation classes (percent cover >1%) while the EVT product only identified 8 dominant classes within the study area. This study demonstrated that highly detailed and accurate fire fuel maps can be created at local sites where AVIRIS-NG is available and can provide valuable decision-support information to fire managers to combat wildfires.

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Citation: Smith, Christopher William; Panda, Santosh K.; Bhatt, Uma Suren; Meyer, Franz J. 2021. Improved boreal forest wildfire fuel type mapping in interior Alaska using AVIRIS-NG hyperspectral data. Remote Sensing 13(5):897.

Cataloging Information

Topics:
Fuels    Mapping
Regions:
Keywords:
  • AVIRIS - Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer
  • AVIRIS-NG
  • boreal forest
  • hyperspectral
  • random forests
  • remote sensing
Record Last Modified:
Record Maintained By: FRAMES Staff (https://www.frames.gov/contact)
FRAMES Record Number: 62871