title: Mapping forest fuels through vegetation phenology: the role of coarse-resolution satellite time-series.
abstract: Traditionally fuel maps are built in terms of 'fuel types', thus considering the structural characteristics of vegetation only. The aim of this work is to derive a phenological fuel map based on the functional attributes of coarse-scale vegetation phenology, such as seasonality and productivity. MODIS NDVI 250 m images of Sardinia (Italy), a large Mediterranean island with high frequency of fire incidence, were acquired for the period 2000-2012 to construct a mean annual NDVI profile of the vegetation at the pixel-level. Next, the following procedure was used to develop the phenological fuel map: (i) image segmentation on the Fourier components of the NDVI profiles to identify phenologically homogeneous landscape units, (ii) cluster analysis of the phenological units and post-hoc analysis of the fire-proneness of the phenological fuel classes (PFCs) obtained, (iii) environmental characterization (in terms of land cover and climate) of the PFCs. Our results showed the ability of coarse-resolution satellite time-series to characterize the fire-proneness of Sardinia with an adequate level of accuracy. The remotely sensed phenological framework presented may represent a suitable basis for the development of fire distribution prediction models, coarse-scale fuel maps and for various biogeographic studies.
authors.affiliation: Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e L'analisi Dell'Economia Agraria, Research Unit for Climatology and Meteorology applied to Agriculture (CRA-CMA), Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Sofia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bajocco
authors.affiliation: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, School of Forestry and Natural Environment, Thessaloniki, Greece.
authors.forename: Eleni
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Dragoz
authors.affiliation: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, School of Forestry and Natural Environment, Thessaloniki, Greece.
authors.forename: Ioannis
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Gitas
authors.affiliation: Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e L'analisi Dell'Economia Agraria, Research Unit for Climatology and Meteorology applied to Agriculture (CRA-CMA), Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Smiraglia
authors.affiliation: Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l'Analisi Dell'Economia, Research Centre for Soil-Plant System studies (CRA-RPS), Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Salvati
authors.affiliation: University of Roma La Sapienza, Department of Environmental Biology, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ricotta
mesh_terms: D004736:Energy-Generating Resources; D005390:Fires; D065928:Forests; D015233:Models, Statistical; D063809:Satellite Imagery
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