USGS Seminar

Mapping burned areas using dense time-series of Landsat data
Dr. Todd Hawbaker and Dr. Melanie Vanderhoof
Hawbaker and Vanderhoof from the USGS in Lakewood, CO will be visiting  to talk about their most recently published data product and discuss potential collaboration with CIRES/Earth Lab groups. Hawbaker will be giving a 1 hour lecture on the creation and validation of the fire product.
Abstract: Complete and accurate burned area data are needed to document patterns of fires, to quantify their drivers, and to assess the impacts on human and natural systems. Unfortunately, existing fire occurrence datasets are known to be incomplete. In response, we developed the Burned Area Essential Climate Variable (BAECV) algorithm that identifies burned areas in dense time-series of Landsat data and used it to map burned areas across the conterminous United States from 1984-2015. The resulting products were validated using independent data and have accuracies better than existing global fire datasets. The BAECV products also show patterns of fire that are not well characterized by existing fire occurrence datasets. We anticipate the BAECV products will be useful to studies that seek to understand past patterns of fire occurrence, the drivers that created them, and the impacts fires have on natural and human systems.