More information

More information

3. Third International Workshop on Remote Sensing and GIS Applications to Forest Management. New methods and sensors [Paris, France. 17-18 May, 2001]

The Workshop was organised by the FF-SIG group and followed two previous technical workshops held in Thessaloniki (1993) and Alcalá de Henares (1995), and the Seminar organised in Coimbra (1998). The main topic of the Workshop was the application of new sensors and technologies to fire prevention, detection and mapping. Special emphasis was devoted to global and regional approaches and defining common standards for validating fire products. Potentials of Vegetation, MODIS, and MERIS were reviewed, as well as the continued development of techniques to improve processing of AVHRR, ATSR and WiFs data. The integration of human factors in the analysis of risk was also considered, in order to obtain a more comprehensive view of fire danger estimation.

Following the III International Conference on Forest Fire Research there was a session held for the EARSeL FF-SIG Group. In this short seminar 3 keynote speeches were addressed, each followed by an informal discussion on the topic presented and relevant issues concerning it.

Michel Deshayes presented a lecture on the "Evaluation of Different NOAA-AVHRR Derived Indices for Fuel Moisture Estimation". He reviewed the main efforts currently undertaking in the estimation of foliage moisture content from remotely sensed data, pointing out the shortcomings and the future lines of progress. The lecture received a variety of comments. Some were to do with the future advantages of using data from satellites such as the IKONOS (which could be more operational for fire use and would improve understory data), or the METEOSAT 2^nd generation, rather than AVHRR. The pros of the latter one concern its higher temporal resolution and increased number of bands. Also there was a certain amount of discussion on which parameters were most significant and the appropriateness of using Moisture Content, Water Stress and vegetation indices. Fuel type mapping was also briefly talked about, mainly regarding Mediterranean shrubland and the difficulties derived from the presence of pines.

The second keynote speech, "Space Technology for Fire Detection" was addressed by Cristóbal Martín Rico, and was very much based on the upcoming FUEGO project. This project included the launching of various satellites, specifically designed to obtain information for forest fire detection (and location), at 700º K, with a 15-30 minutes revisiting time, and at a reasonable cost. Overall, the general impression was detection and reducing false alarms. In addition, Cristóbal Martín also raised interesting issues to be addressed henceforth, such as the use of multispectral identification to trace gases in order to identify fire types, the role of smoke in detection improvement, or possible outlooks in the field of microwave signatures, using passive radiometers like the MIMER and MIMAS.

José Miguel Pereira addressed the third and final keynote lecture: "Burned Land Mapping using NOAA-AVHRR Satellite Imagery". The session concentrated on comparing the use and results of various spectral channels and indices to map fire scars in both Portugal and the Sudanese Sahel. Pereira pointed out that there was very little available data on spectral properties of burned areas. As a result of these comparisons, three main variables were selected and ranked in this order of importance: albedo, channel T4, and the GEMI vegetation index. J.M. Pereira stated that in spite of the satisfactory results, AVHRR data was not good for burnt area mapping. Furthermore, he believed that what is good for vegetation monitoring is not good for burned area indices.

The last period of the seminar was devoted to bringing up proposals mainly in order to strengthen links among EARSeL FF-SIG members as well as to widen our contacts. This was great chance to discuss what was needed and what could be offered in our field

The first key issue was on how to improve our web page. In this respect, suggestions were made to include a professional profile on EARSeL members, which should have hypertext links to other web sites and other relevant information namely databases, sources of imagery, ground data statistics, algorithms and software. In addition, some assistants recommended the creation of another information sector dealing with international activities and projects, as well as employment and job opportunities.

Another item that was discussed was the access to each other's publications. Someone suggested that the SIG could act as scientific peer review of papers written by members. The general opinion was more favourable to contacting the potential reviewers directly.

The possibility of exchanging students among the member institutions received a warm welcome. More specific agreements on this proposal would obviously rely entirely on the institutions involved but the general idea would be something similar to the existing ERASMUS and SOCRATES programmes.

Two other proposals were examined. The first one was in the realms of exploring concerted action, research networks and web discussion lists. A second idea was which was put forth was the chance to join efforts for receiving fieldwork funding, in order to get good data sets to validate results.

The final issue that had to be dealt with was the date and place of our next FF-SIG meeting. It was strongly recommended to allow a lapse of time between meetings so as to be able to come up with reasonably new and validated results. The formula of fitting the RSFF-SIG meeting into an already organised congress was widely accepted. The Delphi Symposium, which will be held on 18^th of November 1999 in Athens, is a strong candidate.