https://lms.southwestern.edu/file.php/3722/Literature/Verbesselt-2002-EstimatingForestFires.pdf
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| Wildfire Risk Assessment in Virginia |
To fully understand the use of GIS as a way to predict
future forest fires, one must first look deeper at the extensive
characteristics that can affect the start of a forest first. Vegetation
moisture is an obvious detail in prediction of forest fires, but there are
numerous aspects of vegetation moisture that are acquired from the information.
Explained in Estimation of fuel moisture
context towards Fire Risk Assessment: A Review by J. Verbesselt, S. Fleck
and P. Coppin (2002) , vegetation moisture helps show fire behavior factors
such as “preheating and ignition of unburned fuels, rate of fire spread (or
fire growth), rate of energy release, and production of smoke by burning and
smoldering fuel” (p.1). Such statistical data as thermal remote sensing (which
relates leaf water content to evapotranspiration rates) and thermal inertia
method (which studies the daily rise and fall of temperatures in context of
describing soil moisture) allow GIS to spatial show the information in a way
that allows for prediction of forest fires. Futuristically, there is also the
possibility that “manipulations of fuel type, load and arrangement could be
used to help protect local areas of high value” (Verbesselt, Fleck &
Coppin, 2002, p. 2). With these methods and numerous others Verbesselt, Fleck
and Coppin (2002), in collaboration with GIS and coarse resolution imagery,
prediction of forest fires forms “very sound approach is the integrated
analysis of fire danger based on the combination of satellite data and
meteorological danger indices” (p.8). The practical use of these models has
been used by Flannigan, which results show that “the seasonal severity rating (SSR)
will increase by 10-50% over most of North America” (Verbesselt, Fleck &
Coppin, 2002, p.8). Finally, the ability of GIS and forest fire prediction
models needs to be placed in a context that allows for a balance between the
land owners and the environment, in hopes to people and resources from the
destruction of fires while also not reduces the ecological niche of those
fires.
Forest fires can be extremely beneficial to the ecology
of numerous environments, yet the ability to maintain these fires and reduce
their impact on society is something that can have a great impact and needs to
be researched further. With the technological advancements in recent history,
GIS has taken a large role in gaining data on areas that has historical fire occurrence
and those that may futuristically have fires. From this, the ability to predict
and not react to forest fires has become more of a practical possibility.
Works Cited
Verbesselt,
J., Fleck, S., & Coppin, F. (2002). Estimation of fuel moisture content
towards fire risk assessment: A review. Forest Fire Research and Wildland
Safety Viegas (ed)
I like how you started off with a picture to catch the reader's attention! Who knew that the range of increase of forest fires in the future would stretch as far as 50%! Might the GIS data, or other data be able to narrow down the 10%-50% range, allowing for others to better quantify and/or qualify forests coming their way?
ReplyDeleteReading this summary made me think of this trip I went on Bamberger Ranch near San Antonio. The man who owns the land has been restoring it for the past 40 years from a severely degraded state and it is truly amazing how far the land has come. Our guide talked about how cedar trees are a somewhat invasive species and had completely taken over the land (as they have in other areas of Texas as well), because wildfires used to be a regular part of the ecosystem and would burn down many of the cedar trees, and without the fires to keep them in check they got out of control. GIS could be used in this case to manage wildfires in a way that both protects people and preserves the ecosystems of the Texas environment.
ReplyDeleteThis application of GIS is very exciting, and could revolutionize forest conservation and the protection of humans and wildlife against out-of-control forest fires. The information from this kind of research can tell people what parts of forests need to be burned and what parts need to be cleaned out and are too risky to burn. GIS can give a comprehensive birds eye view that would take forest and park rangers months to get from research on the ground alone.
ReplyDeleteIts amazing that there is a program out there (GIS) that can predict the probability of a fire occurring. It can also reduce the rates of a huge fire's breaking out, if we look at areas of concern and do a controlled burn it is less likely that it could go up in flames by itself. Controlled fires is something Native American's started a long time ago and it is necessary for the grasses to grow properly and to rejuvenate soil from degradation by performing these fires. So not only could this program save lives, it could prevent large fires from destroying infrastructure. Lets use GIS and keep people's houses up!
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