Journal article
Forest Fire Severity and Koala Habitat Recovery Assessment Using Pre-and Post-Burn Multitemporal Sentinel-2 Msi Data
Forests, Vol.15(11), pp.1-29
2024
Abstract
Habitat loss due to wildfire is an increasing problem internationally for threatened animal species, particularly tree-dependent and arboreal animals. The koala (Phascolartos cinereus) is endangered in most of its range, and large areas of forest were burnt by widespread wildfires in Australia in 2019/2020, mostly areas dominated by eucalypts, which provide koala habitats. We studied the impact of fire and three subsequent years of recovery on a property in SouthEast Queensland, Australia. A classified Differenced Normalised Burn Ratio (dNBR) calculated from pre-and post-burn Sentinel-2 scenes encompassing the local study area was used to assess regional impact of fire on koala-habitat forest types. The geometrically structured composite burn index (GeoCBI), a field-based assessment, was used to classify fire severity impact. To detect lower levels of forest recovery, a manual classification of the multitemporal dNBR was used, enabling the direct comparison of images between recovery years. In our regional study area, the most suitable koala habitat occupied only about 2%, and about 10% of that was burnt by wildfire. From the five koala habitat forest types studied, one upland type was burnt more severely and extensively than the others but recovered vigorously after the first year, reaching the same extent of recovery as the other forest types. The two alluvial forest types showed a negligible fire impact, likely due to their sheltered locations. In the second year, all the impacted forest types studied showed further, almost equal, recovery. In the third year of recovery, there was almost no detectable change and therefore no more notable vegetative growth. Our field data revealed that the dNBR can probably only measure the general vegetation present and not tree recovery via epicormic shooting and coppicing. Eucalypt foliage growth is a critical resource for the koala, so field verification seems necessary unless more-accurate remote sensing methods such as hyperspectral imagery can be implemented.
Details
- Title
- Forest Fire Severity and Koala Habitat Recovery Assessment Using Pre-and Post-Burn Multitemporal Sentinel-2 Msi Data
- Authors
- Derek Johnson (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringAlison Shapcott - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Centre for BioinnovationSanjeev Kumar Srivastava - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and Engineering
- Publication details
- Forests, Vol.15(11), pp.1-29
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Date published
- 2024
- DOI
- 10.3390/f15111991
- ISSN
- 1999-4907
- Copyright note
- © 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
- Data Availability
- The data that support this study cannot be publicly shared at this time as further, different analyses from these data are intended. Some data elements may be shared upon reasonable request to the corresponding author if appropriate.
- Grant note
- Funding was provided by the Australian Koala Foundation (Save The Koala Fund ABN 76 400 543 983). Additional funding was provided by the University of the Sunshine Coast. Both are part of a University of the Sunshine Coast Scholarship Agreement dated 24 June 2021.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Science, Technology and Engineering; Centre for Bioinnovation; Sustainability Research Cluster
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991076696502621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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