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Annual Fire Scars - Landsat, QLD DES algorithm, QLD coverage

The data set is a statewide annual composite of fire scars (burnt area) derived from all available Landsat 5, 7 and 8 images acquired over the period January to December using time series change detection. Fire scars are automatically detected and mapped using dense time series of Landsat imagery acquired over the period 1987 - present. In addition, from 2013, products have undergone significant quality assessment and manual editing. The automated Landsat fire scar map products covering the period 1987-2012 were validated using a Landsat-derived data set of over 500,000 random points sampling the spatial and temporal variability. On average, over 80% of fire scars captured in Landsat imagery have been correctly mapped with less than 30% false fire rate. These error rates are significantly reduced in the edited 2013-2016 fire scar data sets, although this has not been quantified. <br>


For the 2016 annual fire scar composite, the manual editing stage incorporated Landsat and Sentinel 2A imagery (resampled to match Landsat spatial resolution), allowing for increased cloud-free ground observations, and an associated reduction in the number of missed fires (not quantified). Sentinel 2A images were primarily used to map fire scars that were otherwise undetectable in the Landsat sequence due to cloud cover/Landsat revisit time. Additionally, Landsat-7 SLC-Off imagery (affected by striping) was excluded from the 2016 annual composite. It is expected that these modifications should result in improved mapping accuracy for the 2016 period.<br>


A new fire scar detection algorithm has been developed, with a new edited product implemented in 2021.

Simple

Identification info

Date (Creation)
2014-10-14
Date (Publication)
2021-09-23
Date (Revision)
2014-07-14
Edition
1.0

Publisher

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
Building 1019, 80 Meiers Rd
Indooroopilly
QLD
4068
Australia
+61 7 3365 9097

Author

Department of Environment and Science, Queensland Government - Collett, Lisa ()
Ecosciences Precinct, 41 Boggo Road Dutton Park QLD 4102 Australia
Dutton Park
QLD
4102
Australia
Website
https://www.tern.org.au/

Purpose
Characterising historic patterns of burning and changing fire regimes over time (spatial extent, timing, patchiness, frequency and intensity) is important for improving our understanding and management of fire, climate, land-use and vegetation interactions. These products may assist the development of appropriate fire management practices and benefit a range of conservation and resource management objectives, as well as ongoing scientific research.
Credit
We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
Credit
Landsat 5 TM, Landsat 7 ETM+ and Landsat 8 OLI images were acquired from United States Geologic Survey. Copernicus Sentinel 2 data from the European Union and European Space Agency Copernicus Program.
Status
Completed

Point of contact

Department of Environment and Science, Queensland Government - Vandenberg, Deanna ()
Ecosciences Precinct, 41 Boggo Road Dutton Park QLD 4102 Australia
Ecosciences Precinct, 41 Boggo Road
Dutton Park
QLD
4102
Australia
Topic category
  • Imagery base maps earth cover
  • Environment

Extent

Description
Queensland
N
S
E
W


Temporal extent

Time period
1987-01-01 2016-12-31

Vertical element

Minimum value
0.0
Maximum value
0.0
Reference system type
Geodetic Geographic 3D
Title
Goodwin, N.R. and Collett, L.J. 2014. Development of an automated method for mapping fire history captured in Landsat TM and ETM+ time series across Queensland, Australia. Remote Sensing of Environment 148, 206-221
Website
Goodwin, N.R. and Collett, L.J. 2014. Development of an automated method for mapping fire history captured in Landsat TM and ETM+ time series across Queensland, Australia. Remote Sensing of Environment 148, 206-221

Related documentation

GCMD Science Keywords
  • VEGETATION COVER
  • FIRE HISTORY
ANZSRC Fields of Research
  • ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS
  • ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND MANAGEMENT
TERN Platform Vocabulary
  • LANDSAT-5
  • LANDSAT-7
  • LANDSAT-8
  • SENTINEL-2A
TERN Instrument Vocabulary
  • TM
  • ETM+
  • OLI
TERN Parameter Vocabulary
  • fire events
  • Month
GCMD Horizontal Resolution Ranges
  • 30 meters - < 100 meters
GCMD Temporal Resolution Ranges
  • Weekly - < Monthly

Resource constraints

Use limitation
The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license allows others to copy, distribute, display, and create derivative works provided that they credit the original source and any other nominated parties. Details are provided at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
File name
88x31.png
File description
CCBy Logo from creativecommons.org
File type
png
Linkage
https://w3id.org/tern/static/cc-by/88x31.png

Title
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
Alternate title
CC-BY
Edition
4.0
Website
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Access constraints
License
Use constraints
Other restrictions
Other constraints
TERN services are provided on an “as-is” and “as available” basis. Users use any TERN services at their discretion and risk. They will be solely responsible for any damage or loss whatsoever that results from such use including use of any data obtained through TERN and any analysis performed using the TERN infrastructure. Web links to and from external, third party websites should not be construed as implying any relationships with and/or endorsement of the external site or its content by TERN.

Resource constraints

Classification
Unclassified

Distribution Information

Distributor

Distributor

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
Building 1019, 80 Meiers Rd, Indooroopilly, QLD, Australia, 4068
Indooroopilly
QLD
4068
Australia
OnLine resource
Download Annual Fire Scars data via HTTP

Data quality info

Hierarchy level
Dataset
Other
The input imagery was processed to level L1T by the USGS. Geodetic accuracy of the product depends on the image quality and the accuracy, number, and distribution of the ground control points.

Report

Result

Statement
The USGS aims to provide image-to-image registration with an accuracy of 12m. Refer to the L8 Data Users Handbook for more detail. For 1987-2012 automated fire scar products, the average fire scar omission error was measured at 15%.

Resource lineage

Statement
Applied outlier identification algorithm to timeseries of geometrically and radiometrically corrected Landsat and Sentinel 2 imagery, as described in https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2014.03.021
Hierarchy level
Dataset

Process step

Description
Algorithm Summary: Raster pixel values correspond to the month of detection (often different from the date of active fire). A pixel is mapped as burnt if there has been a significant change in reflectance relative to the time series due to the effects of fire e.g. presence of charcoal or ash, removal of foliage, scorch. Pixel values:0: no fire scar was detected during this period;1-12: month (of Landsat acquisition) when fire scar was first detected;254: crop/water masked - no fire scar detection conducted. For the 2014-2016 products, crop and water masking was applied during processing and these areas are not attributed as 254;255: no data value.Note: fire scars may persist and continue to be detected for several months in the image time sequence. The earliest month of detection within the compositing year is recorded.Data sets are 8 Bit GeoTiff with LZW compression and tiling (BigTIFF).<br /> See https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2014.03.021

Process step

Description
Algorithm Accuracy: Landsat does not provide a complete record of fire history for this period. This is mostly due to the sensor revisit time of 8-16 days which may be further limited by cloud and cloud shadow obstruction and striping in the imagery. Annual composites from 2003 onwards are affected by data loss due to systematic striping in the Landsat-7 ETM+ imagery. This is due to the failure of the instrument's Scan Line Corrector (SLC). This is increasingly apparent in imagery acquired in the period 2010-2013, prior to the launch of Landsat-8, as image transmission from the Landsat-5 TM (unaffected by striping) was limited and finally ceased in November 2011 due to sensor malfunction. This has resulted in striping and fragmentation in the fire scar maps derived from SLC-Off imagery.

Process step

Description
Omissions: In the 1987-2012 automated fire scar products, the average fire scar omission error for the State was measured at 15%. The omission error does not include fire scars missed due to Landsat data loss e.g. SLC-Off striping, or gaps in the Landsat record e.g. due to cloud or revisit time. This has not been quantified due to the lack of a validation data set which is independent from the sensor being used (Landsat). In addition, omission errors are likely to be higher for fire scar composites containing Landsat-7 SLC-Off striping and for wet season periods (Nov-February) in tropical and coastal regions where cloud cover may obscure the view of the surface for months at a time. A fire scar signal may not be evident in the image sequence for long time periods, particularly in savanna regions in North Queensland. Ash/char can be blown or washed away over short periods of time (~weeks) and the fire scar is often rapidly masked by green-flush and vegetation resprouting in subsequent images.

Process step

Description
Omissions: Additionally, fires may be captured in the Landsat imagery but missed or under-mapped by the classifier for the following reasons: the fire may be too small or patchy to detect; cool grass/understorey fires may be obscured by the unburnt tree canopy; or the fire may be misclassified as non-fire related change or cloud shadow. An assumption that burnt areas decline in reflectance over time may not always be true and missed fire scars have been noted (e.g. spinifex grasses). The additional step of manual editing applied to the 2013-2016 fire scar data sets should reduce the number of missed fires (due to misclassification) to well below the measured omission rate of 15%, although the edited mapping has not been validated. For 2016, the incorporation of Sentinel 2A into the Landsat image sequence at the manual editing stage has allowed for increased cloud-free ground observations, improved interpretation, and mapping of fire scars which might otherwise be missed in the Landsat sequence.

Process step

Description
False Fires: In the 1987-2012 automated fire scar products, the average rate of false fires across Queensland was measured at 30%. This is likely to be less in some regions and more in others. False fires are far more common in image dates affected by SLC-Off striping as the data is fragmented and less reliable. False fires or over-mapping of fire scars may result from the presence of cloud shadows, areas of high land-use change (e.g. cropping), black soils, and inundation e.g. tidal flats, wetlands, ephemeral lakes and channels. These features often spectrally and temporally resemble fire scars. The additional step of manual editing applied to the 2013-2016 fire scar data sets should reduce the number of false fires to well below the measured rate of 30%, although the edited mapping has not been validated.

Reference System Information

Reference system identifier
EPSG/EPSG:4326

Reference system type
Geodetic Geographic 2D

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/461074b3-5272-4e4e-886f-df26bd2426ad

Title
TERN GeoNetwork UUID

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

Point of contact

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
Building 1019, 80 Meiers Rd
Indooroopilly
QLD
4068
Australia
+61 7 3365 9097

Type of resource

Resource scope
Dataset
Metadata linkage
https://geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/461074b3-5272-4e4e-886f-df26bd2426ad

Point-of-truth metadata URL

Date info (Creation)
2014-10-14T00:00:00
Date info (Revision)
2021-06-01T00:00:00

Metadata standard

Title
ISO 19115-1:2014/AMD 1:2018 Geographic information - Metadata - Fundamentals
Edition
1

Metadata standard

Title
ISO/TS 19115-3:2016
Edition
1.0

Metadata standard

Title
ISO/TS 19157-2:2016
Edition
1.0
Title
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-3:2016 and ISO 19157-2:2016
Date (published)
2021
Edition
1.0

Identifier

Code
10.5281/zenodo.5652221
Website
https://github.com/ternaustralia/TERN-ISO19115/releases/tag/v1.0

 
 

Overviews

Spatial extent

N
S
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W


Keywords

ANZSRC Fields of Research
ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND MANAGEMENT
GCMD Science Keywords
FIRE HISTORY VEGETATION COVER

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