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SMOS and climate data applicability for analyzing forest decline and forest fires
Abstract
Forests partially reduce climate change impact but, at the same time, this climate forcing threatens forest's health. In recent decades, droughts are becoming more frequent and intense implying an increase of forest decline episodes and forest fires. In this context, global and frequent soil moisture observations from the ESA's SMOS mission could be useful in controlling forest exposure to decline and fires. In this paper, SMOS observations and several climate variables are analyzed together with decline and fire inventories, to study the effect of soil moisture on forest decline during an important drought on summer 2012, and on forest fires in the period 2010-2013. Results show that SMOS-derived soil moisture is a complementary variable in forest decline models. Some of the studied tree species exhibit high probability of decline occurrence under dry conditions. First results showed burned areas to be drier than unburned ones previous to the fire occurrences.
... Estas imágenes se generan a partir de los productos "Soil Moisture Level Products" provenientes de una resolución espacial de 43 km, para los años 2010 a 2016, los cuales han sido utilizados como herramienta para el manejo de incendios (SMOS-BEC Team, 2014a). Con este producto se ha demostrado que condiciones previas al fuego incluyen valores bajos de humedad del suelo y altas temperaturas (Chaparro et al., 2014; SMOS-BEC Team, 2014b). ...
p>Torres del Paine National Park (PNTP) is characterized as a representative geographical area of the world’s ecosystems, containing high scenic beauty and wide variety of ecosystems. The aim of this work is to analyze the spatial and temporal trends of vegetation at PNTP using remote images from the Landsat platforms, the MOD13A3 product from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), coverage maps surface Global Land cover Maps of ESA/CCI 2005 and 2010 and a land cover map of continental Chile of 2014. In addition, the products of Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and meteorological data from the Torres del Paine meteorological station were used to analyze the environmental conditions that presented the park while the fire occurred the years 2011-2012. To determine the magnitude of the changes of vegetation affected by fire at PNTP a nonparametric trend analysis was use with the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) of MODIS from 2002 to 2016 and the Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) for the fire occurred the year 2005 and the years 2011-2012. The results show that between both fires it is been affected more than 30.000 hectares of the national park, being the “Scrub” and “Forest” coverage the most affected due to the high level of severity and the low regeneration of the burn area (less than 56%). The soil moisture does not exceed 20% m<sup>3</sup>m<sup>-3</sup> before the fire and the rainfall does not exceed 101 mm during the days of fire, which is related to an increase in the probability of propagation of the fire. In this work is possible to realize that remote sensing can be used in the fire management to regard the national parks with the objective of preserve and conserve the flora, fauna and scenic beauty of Chile.
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... The applicability of SMOS data on forest fire prevention has been already studied over the Iberian Peninsula. Specifically, the studies presented in [Chaparro et al., 2014[Chaparro et al., , 2015[Chaparro et al., , 2016 have reported that the use of SMOS soil moisture, when combined with land surface temperature data, allows to develop fire risk estimates in this region. Interestingly, it was also found that the use of anomalies of both variables improved the detection of high fire risk [Chaparro et al., 2016]. ...
In this study, drought conditions involving risk of fires are detected applying SMOS-derived soil moisture data and land surface temperature models. Moisture-temperature (SM-LST) patterns studied between 2010 and 2014 were linked to main fire regimes in the Iberian Peninsula. Most wildfires burned in warm and dry soils, but the analysis of pre-fire conditions differed among seasons. Absolute values of SM-LST were useful to detect prone-to-fire conditions during summer and early autumn. Complementarily, SM-LST anomalies were related to droughts and high fire activity in October 2011 and February-March 2012. These episodes were coincident with abnormally anticyclonic atmospheric conditions. Results show that combined trends of new soil moisture space-borne data and temperature models could enhance fire risk assessment capabilities. This contribution should be helpful to face the expected increase of wildfire activity derived from climate change.
... The results demonstrated that SMOS-derived 1-km soil moisture is a complementary variable to other meteorological drivers (e.g. precipitation, land surface temperature) in forest decline models; some of the studied tree species exhibit a high probability of forest die-off occurrence under persistent dry conditions, as seen by SMOS (Chaparro et al. 2014). Also, in collaboration with the Universitat de València, fine-scale SM estimates have been shown to be useful to account for short-term water stress on vegetation in model estimates of gross primary production (GPP) (Sánchez-Ruiz et al. 2014b). ...
Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) is the first satellite mission capable of measuring sea surface salinity and soil moisture from space. Its novel instrument (the L-band radiometer MIRAS) has required the development of new algorithms to process SMOS data, a challenging task due to many processing issues and the difficulties inherent in a new technology. In the wake of SMOS, a new community of users has grown, requesting new products and applications, and extending the interest in this novel brand of satellite services. This paper reviews the role played by the Barcelona Expert Centre under the direction of Jordi Font, SMOS co-principal investigator. The main scientific activities and achievements and the future directions are discussed, highlighting the importance of the oceanographic applications of the mission.
... In addition, forest fires are of significant concern because a sizeable fraction of wildfires occur in forest areas. To demonstrate the intensive influence of drought conditions, data from the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite were used to analyse forest fires with several climate variables, which indicated that burned areas are obviously drier than unburned areas (Vayreda et al. 2014). Regardless of the successful application of various statistical data sets, the effects of the aforementioned factors were previously evaluated separately rather than together, which is important considering their combined effects. ...
Wildfires are a significant problem for power line maintenance that can lead to widespread power outages and economic loss in China. Remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) technologies and their derived applications are effective tools for power line surveillance and disaster prevention. Using multi-source data and remote-sensing techniques, a risk assessment of wildfire occurrence in high-voltage power line corridors in Hubei Province, China, is presented in this study. Both natural and human causes are considered in the assessment, including a traditional Chinese spring custom. Historical ignition points along power line corridors in Hubei Province that occurred from 2009 to 2014 were collected as training data to create a quantitative analysis. Next, a logistic regression model was applied, and ignition probability maps were produced for power lines. Several wildfire accidents that occurred in 2015 were used as validation data to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. The experimental results indicated that the drought conditions significantly influenced wildfires as natural cause, and human activities play important roles in causing wildfires during specific time periods. The effectiveness and robustness of our method is thereby demonstrated, and our method can be used to provide valuable suggestions for wildfire management for the electrical department in Hubei Province.
... They concluded that wet soil surface limited fire propagation and that 80% of fires occurred under dry soil conditions in summer [3]. Moreover, SMOS L4 fine-scale data was used to analyze the differences in soil moisture pre-fire conditions between burned and unburned cells in Catalonia (NE Spain), showing that burned cells where drier prior to fire, when compared with unburned cells randomly chosen [4]. ...
A radiação solar é fonte energética vital de todos processos existentes na Terra. Além disso, atualmente, com uma preocupação crescente em relação à utilização de fontes alternativas e sustentáveis de energia, seu uso tem sido utilizado como uma boa solução para conversão energética, controle de temperatura de água e conforto térmico. Em superfícies inclinadas, a orientação e o ângulo da inclinação da superfície alteram os níveis energéticos recebidos se comparados com uma superfície horizontal. Medidas da irradiação solar em superfícies verticais podem contribuir para planejamentos de instalações de painéis solares nas fachadas de construções, conforto térmico e iluminação natural. Este trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar os dados da irradiação solar global em superfície vertical orientada ao Norte medidos durante o ano de 2010 na Faculdade de Ciências Agronômicas da UNESP de Botucatu. Foi comparada as medidas da radiação solar global em superfície vertical com superfície horizontal, a fim de se analisar os níveis quantitativos de irradiação solar global em superfície vertical no decorrer do ano para Botucatu–SP. Verificou-se também diferenças sazonais significativas entre as radiações solares global vertical e horizontal. Nos meses de verão, a irradiação medida na superfície vertical é composta basicamente das parcelas difusa e refletida. Para uso da irradiação solar durante o ano, recomenda-se a superfície vertical para os meses de maio a julho. Nos demais meses, recomenda-se a superfície horizontal.
Wildfires are a concerning issue in Canada due to their immediate impact on people’s lives, local economy, climate, and environment. Studies have shown that the number of wildfires and affected areas in Canada has increased during recent decades and is a result of a warming and drying climate. Therefore, identifying potential wildfire risk areas is increasingly an important aspect of wildfire management. The purpose of this study is to investigate if remotely sensed soil moisture products from the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite can be used to identify potential wildfire risk areas for better wildfire management. We used the National Fire Database (NFDB) fire points and polygons to group the wildfires according to ecozone classifications, as well as to analyze the SMOS soil moisture data over the wildfire areas, between 2010–2017, across fourteen ecozones in Canada. Timeseries of 3-day, 5-day, and 7-day soil moisture anomalies prior to the onset of each wildfire occurrence were examined over the ecozones individually. Overall, the results suggest, despite the coarse-resolution, SMOS soil moisture products are potentially useful in identifying soil moisture anomalies where wildfire hot-spots may occur.
The capacity of six water stress factors (ε′i) to track daily light use efficiency (ε) of water-limited ecosystems was evaluated. These factors are computed with remote sensing operational products and a limited amount of ground data: ε′1 uses ground precipitation and air temperature, and satellite incoming global solar radiation; ε′2 uses ground air temperature, and satellite actual evapotranspiration and incoming global solar radiation; ε′3 uses satellite actual and potential evapotranspiration; ε′4 uses satellite soil moisture; ε′5 uses satellite-derived photochemical reflectance index; and ε′6 uses ground vapor pressure deficit. These factors were implemented in a production efficiency model based on Monteith’s approach in order to assess their performance for modeling gross primary production (GPP). Estimated GPP was compared to reference GPP from eddy covariance (EC) measurements (GPPEC) in three sites placed in the Iberian Peninsula (two open shrublands and one savanna). ε′i were correlated to ε calculated dividing GPPEC by ground measured photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and satellite-derived fraction of absorbed PAR. Best results were achieved by ε′1, ε′2, ε′3 and ε′4 explaining around 40% and 50% of ε variance in open shurblands and savanna, respectively. In terms of GPP, R² ≈ 0.70 were obtained in these cases.
The ESA's Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission is the first satellite devoted to measure the Earth's surface soil moisture. It has a spatial resolution of ~ 40 km and a 3-day revisit. In this paper, a downscaling algorithm is presented as a new ability to obtain multiresolution soil moisture estimates from SMOS using visible-to-infrared remotely sensed observations. This algorithm is applied to combine 2 years of SMOS and MODIS Terra/Aqua data over the Iberian Peninsula into fine-scale (1 km) soil moisture estimates. Disaggregated soil moisture maps are compared to 0-5 cm ground-based measurements from the REMEDHUS network. Three matching strategies are employed: 1) a comparison at 40 km spatial resolution is undertaken to ensure SMOS sensitivity is preserved in the downscaled maps; 2) the spatio-temporal correlation of downscaled maps is analyzed through comparison with point-scale observations; and 3) high-resolution maps and ground-based observations are aggregated per land-use to identify spatial patterns related with vegetation activity and soil type. Results show that the downscaling method improves the spatial representation of SMOS coarse soil moisture estimates while maintaining temporal correlation and root mean squared differences with ground-based measurements. The dynamic range of in situ soil moisture measurements is reproduced in the high-resolution maps, including stations with different mean soil wetness conditions. Downscaled maps capture the soil moisture dynamics of general land uses, with the exception of irrigated crops. This evaluation study supports the use of this downscaling approach to enhance the spatial resolution of SMOS observations over semi-arid regions such as the Iberian Peninsula.
Forests provide innumerable ecological, societal and climatological benefits, yet they are vulnerable to drought and temperature extremes. Climate-driven forest die-off from drought and heat stress has occurred around the world, is expected to increase with climate change and probably has distinct consequences from those of other forest disturbances. We examine the consequences of drought- and climate-driven widespread forest loss on ecological communities, ecosystem functions, ecosystem services and land–climate interactions. Furthermore, we highlight research gaps that warrant study. As the global climate continues to warm, understanding the implications of forest loss triggered by these events will be of increasing importance.
This chapter assesses climate-related risks in the context of Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). {Box 19.1} Such risks arise from the interaction of the evolving exposure and vulnerability of human, socioeconomic, and biological systems with changing physical characteristics of the climate system. {19.2} Alternative development paths influence risk by changing the likelihood of climatic events and trends (through their effects on greenhouse gases (GHGs) and other emissions) and by altering vulnerability and exposure. {19.2.4, Figure 19-1, Box 19-2}.
The world's forests influence climate through physical, chemical, and biological processes that affect planetary energetics,
the hydrologic cycle, and atmospheric composition. These complex and nonlinear forest-atmosphere interactions can dampen or
amplify anthropogenic climate change. Tropical, temperate, and boreal reforestation and afforestation attenuate global warming
through carbon sequestration. Biogeophysical feedbacks can enhance or diminish this negative climate forcing. Tropical forests
mitigate warming through evaporative cooling, but the low albedo of boreal forests is a positive climate forcing. The evaporative
effect of temperate forests is unclear. The net climate forcing from these and other processes is not known. Forests are under
tremendous pressure from global change. Interdisciplinary science that integrates knowledge of the many interacting climate
services of forests with the impacts of global change is necessary to identify and understand as yet unexplored feedbacks
in the Earth system and the potential of forests to mitigate climate change.
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