Fuel type mapping for fire risk assessment in Cabañeros National Park (Spain)

FORAGES

Potential supervisors

Margarita Huesca Martinez; Thomas Groen

Spatial Engineering

This topic is adaptable to Spatial Engineering and it covers the following core knowledge areas:
  • Spatial Planning for Governance (SPG)
  • Spatial Information Science (SIS)
  • Technical Engineering (TE)

Suggested Electives

Additional Remarks

There is field data of the study site. However, depending on the situation, fieldwork can be arranged.

Description

Accurate fuel type mapping will help in the decision making process in relation to fire risk mitigation, since it can help to design fuel treatments strategies that will reduce the occurrence and the impact of the wildfires on ecosystem quality. In addition, monitoring fuel types after a wildfire will provide vital information about how the vegetation is regenerating, which will help to forest manager in the making decision process in relation to restoration management activities. Moreover, this information will be useful not only to the fire manager but also to ecologist or carbon cycle modelers. The main problem with current available fuel types is that they are outdated and usually the vertical structure of the vegetation is not well integrated.

Objectives and Methodology

Accurate fuel type mapping will help in the decision making process in relation to fire risk mitigation, since it can help to design fuel treatments strategies that will reduce the occurrence and the impact of the wildfires on ecosystem quality. In addition, monitoring fuel types after a wildfire will provide vital information about how the vegetation is regenerating, which will help to forest manager in the making decision process in relation to restoration management activities. Moreover, this information will be useful not only to the fire manager but also to ecologist or carbon cycle modelers. The main problem with current available fuel types is that they are outdated and usually the vertical structure of the vegetation is not well integrated.

Further reading

Margarita Huesca, David Riaño, and Susan L. Ustin, 2019, Spectral mapping methods applied to LiDAR data: Application to fuel type mapping, International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 74, 159-168