Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Applying Local Measures of Spatial Heterogeneity to Landsat-TM Images for Predicting Wildfire Occurrence in Mediterranean Landscapes

  • Research Article
  • Published:
Landscape Ecology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In mountainous Mediterranean regions, land abandonment processes in past decades are hypothesized to trigger secondary vegetal succession and homogenization, which in recent years has increased the size of burned areas. We conducted an analysis of temporal changes in landscape vegetal spatial pattern over a 15-year period (1984–1998) in a rural area of 672.3 km2 in Eastern Spain to investigate the relationship between local landscape heterogeneity and wildfire occurrence. Heterogeneity was analyzed from textural metrics derived from non-classified remote sensing data at several periods, and was related to wildfire history in the study area. Several neural network models found significant relationships between local spatial pattern and future fire occurrence. In this study, sensitivity analysis of the texture variables suggested that fire occurrence, estimated as probability of burning in the near future, increased where local homogeneity was higher.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • F.A. Albini (1976) Estimating wildfire behavior and effects General Technical Report: INT-30. USDA, Forest Service, Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station Ogden, Utah, USA

    Google Scholar 

  • C. Atzberger (2004) ArticleTitleObject-based retrieval of biophysical canopy variables using artificial neural networks and radiative transfer models Remote Sens. Environ. 93 53–67 Occurrence Handle10.1016/j.rse.2004.06.016

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • M. Ben-Akiva S.R. Lerman (1985) Discrete Choice Analysis: Theory and Application to Travel Demand The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    Google Scholar 

  • Bridle J.S. 1990. Probabilistic interpretation of Feedforward Classification Network Outputs, with Relationships to Statistical Pattern Recognition. Neurocomputing, Vol. F68. NATO ASI Series.

  • P.S. Chavez (1996) ArticleTitleImage-based atmospheric corrections. Revisited and improved Photogrammet. Eng. Remote Sens. 62 1025–1036

    Google Scholar 

  • Conners R.W. and Harlow C.A. 1980. A theoretical comparison of texture algorithms. IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. PAMI-2(3).

  • D.R. Cox E.J. Snell (1989) Analysis of Binary Data EditionNumber2 Chapman & Hall New York, NY, USA

    Google Scholar 

  • Duguy B. 1998. Reconstrucción de los cambios en los usos del suelo y en la estructura del paisaje (1956–1994). Interacción con los incendios. Caso de una zona piloto en la provincia de Alicante. Ph.D. Thesis. Centro Internacional de Altos Estudios Agronómicos Mediterráneos, Instituto Agronómico Mediterráneo de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain, 208 pp.

  • S.E. Fahlman C. Lebiere (1988) The Cascade-Correlation Learning Architecture Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 2. Morgan Kaufmann San Francisco, CA, USA

    Google Scholar 

  • A. Farina (1998) Principles and Methods in Landscape Ecology Chapman & Hall London, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • R.T.T. Forman M. Godron (1986) Landscape Ecology John Wiley & Sons New York, NY, USA 619

    Google Scholar 

  • R.M. Haralick K. Shanmugan I. Dinstein (1973) ArticleTitleTextural features for image classification IEEE Trans. Syst., Man, Cybernet. SMC-3, 6 610–621

    Google Scholar 

  • R.M. Haralick (1979) ArticleTitleStatistical and structural approaches to texture Proc. IEEE 67 786–804 Occurrence Handle10.1109/PROC.1979.11328

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • G. Hepner T. Logan N. Ritter N. Bryant (1990) ArticleTitleArtificial neural network classification using a minimal training set: comparison to conventional supervised classification Photogrammet. Eng. Remote Sens. 56 469–473

    Google Scholar 

  • D.W. Hosmer SuffixJr. S. Lemeshow (1989) Applied Logistic Regression John Wiley & Sons New York, NY, USA

    Google Scholar 

  • InstitutionalAuthorNameICONA (1990) Clave fotográfica para la identificación de modelos de combustible ICONA, Ministerio de Agricultura, Pescay Alimentación Madrid, Spain

    Google Scholar 

  • J.R. Koza (1993) Genetic Programming MIT Press Cambridge, MA, USA

    Google Scholar 

  • F. Lloret E. Calvo X. Pons R. Díaz-Delgado (2002) ArticleTitleWildfires and landscape patterns in the Eastern Iberian Peninsula Landscape Ecol. 17 745–759 Occurrence Handle10.1023/A:1022966930861

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • G.S. Maddala (1988) Introduction to Econometrics Macmillan Publishing Co New York, USA

    Google Scholar 

  • S. Magnussen P. Boudewyn M. Wulder D. Seeman (2000) ArticleTitlePredictions of forest inventory cover type proportions using Landsat TM Silva-Fennica 34 351–370

    Google Scholar 

  • F. Moreira F.C. Rego P.G. Ferreira (2001) ArticleTitleTemporal (1958–1995) pattern of change in a cultural landscape of northwestern Portugal: implications for fire occurrence Landscape Ecol. 16 557–567 Occurrence Handle10.1023/A:1013130528470

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • R.B. Myneni F.G. Hall P.J. Sellers A.L. Marshak (1995) ArticleTitleThe interpretation of spectral vegetation indexes IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 33 481–486 Occurrence Handle10.1109/36.377948

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • R.F. Nelson D.S. Kimes W.A. Salas M. Routhier (2000) ArticleTitleSecondary forest age and tropical forest biomass estimation using thematic mapper imagery BioScience 50 419–431

    Google Scholar 

  • InstitutionalAuthorNameNeuralWare (2000) NeuralSIM, the Complete Solution for Neural Data Modeling User Guide. NeuralWare Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Google Scholar 

  • R.V. O’Neill C.T. Hunsaker S.P. Timmins (1996) ArticleTitleScale problems in reporting landscape pattern at the regional scale Landscape Ecol. 11 169–180

    Google Scholar 

  • InstitutionalAuthorNamePCI Inc. (1997) Using PCI Software PCI Inc Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada

    Google Scholar 

  • R.L. Prentice (1986) ArticleTitleA case-cohort design for epidemiologic cohort studies and disease prevention trials Biometrika 73 1–11 Occurrence Handle10.2307/2336266

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • D. Riaño E. Chuvieco J. Salas A. Palacios A. Bastarrica (2002) ArticleTitleGeneration of fuel type maps from Landsat TM images and ancillary data in Mediterranean ecosystems Can. J. Forest Res. 32 1301–1315 Occurrence Handle10.1139/x02-052

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • D. Riaño E. Chuvieco F.J. Salas I. Aguado (2003) ArticleTitleAssessment of different topographic corrections in Landsat-TM data for mapping vegetation types IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 41 1056–1061 Occurrence Handle10.1109/TGRS.2003.811693

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • S. Rivas-Martínez (1987) Memoria del Mapa de series de vegetación de España Serie TécnicaMinisterio de Agricultura Pescay Alimentación, ICONA 268

    Google Scholar 

  • R. Romero-Calcerrada G.L.W. Perry (2002) Landscape change pattern (1984–1999) and implications for fire incidence in the SPA Encinares del río Alberche and Cofio (Central Spain) D.X. Viegas (Eds) Forest Fire Research & Wildland Fire Safety Millpress Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Google Scholar 

  • R. Romero-Calcerrada G.L.W. Perry (2004) ArticleTitleThe role of land abandonment in landscape dynamics in the SPA ‘Encinares del río Alberche y Cofio’, Central Spain, 1984–1999 Landscape Urban Planning 66 217–232 Occurrence Handle10.1016/S0169-2046(03)00112-9

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • R. Roselló Gimeno (1994) Catálogo florístico y de vegetación de la comarca natural del Alto Mijares (Castellón) Servei de Publicacions Diputació de Castelló, Castelló 650

    Google Scholar 

  • J. Ruiz del Castillo (2000) El fuegofactor ecológico R. Vélez Muñoz (Eds) La defensa contra incendios forestales. Fundamentos y Experiencias McGraw-Hill Madrid, Spain 4.1–4.13

    Google Scholar 

  • InstitutionalAuthorNameSAS Institute Inc. (1999) SAS Online Doc. Version Eight SAS Institute Inc Cary, NC, USA

    Google Scholar 

  • S.M. Shupe S.E. Marsh (2004) ArticleTitleCover- and density-based vegetation classifications of the Sonoran Desert using Landsat TM and ERS-1 SAR imagery Remote Sens. Environ. 93 131–149 Occurrence Handle10.1016/j.rse.2004.07.002

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • P.M. Teillet B. Guindon D.G. Goodenough (1982) ArticleTitleOn the slope-aspect correction of multispectral scanner data Can. J. Remote Sens. 8 84–106

    Google Scholar 

  • Terradas J. 1996. Mesures específiques de gestió per a la prevenció d’incendis. pp. 209–225. In: Terradas J. (Coord.), Ecología del foc. Ed. Proa, S.A. Barcelona, 270 pp.

  • M.G. Turner W.W. Hargrove R.H. Gardner B.T. Milne (1989) ArticleTitleEffects of changing spatial scale on the analysis of landscape pattern Landscape Ecol. 3 153–162 Occurrence Handle10.1007/BF00131534

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • M.J.P. Vasconcelos S. Silva M. Tomé M. Alvim J.M.C. Pereira (2001) ArticleTitleSpatial prediction of fire ignition probabilities: comparing logistic regression and neural networks Photogrammet. Eng. Remote Sens. 67 73–83

    Google Scholar 

  • C. Vega-García P.M. Woodard S.J. Titus W.L. Adamowicz B.S. Lee (1995) ArticleTitleA logit model for predicting the daily occurrence of human caused forest fires Int. J. Wildland Fire 5 101–111 Occurrence Handle10.1071/WF9950101

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • C. Vega-García B.S. Lee P.M. Woodard S.J. Titus (1996) ArticleTitleApplying neural network technology to human-caused wildfire occurrence prediction Artif. Intell. Appl. 10 9–18

    Google Scholar 

  • Vega-García C. 2003. Evolución del riesgo estructural de incendios forestales en la cuenca del río Mijares (Castellón) mediante índices de ecología del paisaje y teledetección. Ph.D. Thesis. University of Alcalá, Alcalá, Madrid, Spain, 337 pp.

  • R. Vélez Muñoz (2000) Los índices meterológicos de peligro R. Vélez Muñoz (Eds) La Defensa Contra Incendios Forestales. Fundamentos y Experiencias McGraw-Hill Madrid 8.10–8.29

    Google Scholar 

  • O. Viedma J. Meliá M. Olmo-Chica (1998) Detecting temporal trends in the spatial patterns of Mediterranean burned shrublands at different scales D.X. Viegas (Eds) Proceedings III International Conference on Forest Fire Research and 14th Conference on Fire and Forest Meteorology, Vol. II ADAI University of Coimbra, Portugal 1593–1618

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Agriculture and Forest Engineering Department, University of Lleida, Avda. Alcalde Rovira Roure 191, 25198, Lleida, Spain

    Cristina Vega-García

  2. Department of Geography, University of Alcalá, C/Colegios 2, 28801, Alcalá, Spain

    Emilio Chuvieco

Authors
  1. Cristina Vega-García
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Emilio Chuvieco
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cristina Vega-García.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Vega-García, C., Chuvieco, E. Applying Local Measures of Spatial Heterogeneity to Landsat-TM Images for Predicting Wildfire Occurrence in Mediterranean Landscapes. Landscape Ecol 21, 595–605 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-005-4119-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-005-4119-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation