engleski

ANALYSIS OF BURNED VEGETATION RECOVERY BY MEANS OF VEGETATION INDICES

One of the largest fires in the Croatian history, so called ‘mother of all fires’, broke out on Monday, 17. July 2017 in the area between Split and Omis (Croatia). The fighting with the firestorm lasted until 18. July when the situation was put under control, and on 19. July, the recovery of the affected area started. The classification showed that the burned area was 40670 square kilometers large. Vegetation indices obtained from aerial or remote sensing imagery are very simple and effective methods for quantitative and qualitative evaluations of vegetation cover and growth dynamics, among other applications. These indices have been widely implemented within remote sensing applications in agronomy and forestry (for example). Spectral characteristic of vegetation were analyzed immediately prior to the fire and one year after the fire for the purpose of observing the recovery of the burned vegetation. This paper reviews values and analysis of three selected vegetation indices: Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Green-Red Vegetation Index (GRVI) and Ratio Vegetation Index (RVI) for the mentioned periods and locations. The channels of the satellite system Sentinel-2 were used for the calculation of the mentioned indices. The classification of the area was made immediately after the fire for the purpose of achieving a better insight into the scale of the fire itself and to define the areas for the purpose of comparison as accurately as possible. Further studies, on the other location, should focus on obtaining more precise variables (in situ measuring and involving experts from forestry or agronomy) which help to explain post-fire vegetation recovery better.

remote sensing ; Sentinel-2 ; vegetation indices ; classification ; analysis

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