ACRoRS, SAT, AIT January 22, 2002 Phuket Thailand: http://www.acrors.ait.ac.th/

The Fieldwork Plan for the Forest Fire 2002 Season at Huai-Kha-Khaeng

Wildlife Sanctuary, Uthaitani Province, West Central Thailand.

Kiyoshi Honda &

Veerachai Tanpipat

ACRoRS, SAT, AIT January 22, 2002 Phuket Thailand: http://www.acrors.ait.ac.th/

Contents

1. Background

2. Objectives

3. Study Area, Data Acquisition and Fieldwork

4. Expected Contributions

5. Conclusion

ACRoRS, SAT, AIT January 22, 2002 Phuket Thailand: http://www.acrors.ait.ac.th/

Background

Accuracy of active forest fire detection has not been evaluated in Thailand.

Contexture Algorithm is being widely used, but it is not optimize for local conditions

In Thailand Dry Dipterocarp and Mixed Deciduous Forest are common types and have a lot of forest fire occurrence.

Deforestation is still a problem in most of SEA and forest fire is the main cause of that.

Remote sensing is the most efficient and economical means of monitoring active forest fires over large areas on a routine basis.

ACRoRS, SAT, AIT January 22, 2002 Phuket Thailand: http://www.acrors.ait.ac.th/

Objectives1. To evaluate active forest fire detection accuracy using contexture algorithm for two types of forests using MODIS.

2. To develop a new contexture algorithm optimize for two types of forests in Thailand by introducing more local parameters such as NDVI, forest history, precipitation, humidity, ground temperature, and people activities.

3. To develop algorithm to detect forest fire burn scars using moderate resolution satellite (MODIS).

ACRoRS, SAT, AIT January 22, 2002 Phuket Thailand: http://www.acrors.ait.ac.th/

Study Area

The World Heritage Huai-Kha-Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary in Utaitani province. It consists part of 4 provinces, Suphan-Buri, Utaitani, Kanchanaburi, and Tak with the total coverage of 2,574 sqkm (1,737,587 rais).

The proposed study area is extended between 14 45’ to 15 15’ North Latitude and 9900’ to 99 30’ East Longitude.

ACRoRS, SAT, AIT January 22, 2002 Phuket Thailand: http://www.acrors.ait.ac.th/

The Huai-Kha-Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary study area GIS layers and MODIS image.

ACRoRS, SAT, AIT January 22, 2002 Phuket Thailand: http://www.acrors.ait.ac.th/

Data Acquisition and Fieldwork NASA-Terra-MODIS daily data from the

ground receiving terminal at Asian Center for Research on Remote Sensing (ACRoRS), Asian Institute of Technology (AIT)

Past ground truth and burnt area maps (1999, 2000 and 2001) from Royal Forest Department, Bangkok and the Forest Fire Control Regional 1 Division 1 Center (HKK) (Chief Surapol Lerawaropart, Chief Thanawat Thongton, and Dir. Siri Akaakara).

ACRoRS, SAT, AIT January 22, 2002 Phuket Thailand: http://www.acrors.ait.ac.th/

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Current ground truth from fieldwork with Royal Forest Department’s staffs at HKK Wildlife Sanctuary. The examples of the ground truth data are precipitation, humidity, temperature, active forest fire locations, and socioeconomic data. The main data will be between January and April (the concentration time will be between February and March).

ACRoRS, SAT, AIT January 22, 2002 Phuket Thailand: http://www.acrors.ait.ac.th/

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The LANDSAT 7 and Terra/ASTER images will be used to validate the MODIS fire products.

ASTER (the request has been put through ASTER ARO Office, Earth Remote Sensing tData Analysis Center (ERSDAC) Tokyo, Japan and Jeffrey T. Morisette, MODIS Land Validation, NASA (and Landsat 7) thru the assistance of Chris Elvidge, NGDC, NOAA.

The Landsat 7 can get from GISTDA thru the collaboration b/w ACRoRS, AIT and GISTDA, but no night time image!!!

ACRoRS, SAT, AIT January 22, 2002 Phuket Thailand: http://www.acrors.ait.ac.th/

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The past and current hotspots’ locations records from World Fire Web (WFW) and future DMSP_OLS (MAFFIN) at ACRoRS, AIT (Dr. Surat Lertlum).

GIS layers from The Forest Resource Assessment Office, Royal Forest Department (Dir. Thongchai Charutpat and Dr. Suwit Ongsomewang).

ACRoRS, SAT, AIT January 22, 2002 Phuket Thailand: http://www.acrors.ait.ac.th/

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The SPOT data from CNES thru Dr. Frederic Borne (Center International Co-operation in Agronomic Research for the Development, CIRAD, France and STAR, SAT, AIT).

The forest fire front line and size will be determined by information from GPS both on the ground (forest fire fighters) and from the helicopter.

ACRoRS, SAT, AIT January 22, 2002 Phuket Thailand: http://www.acrors.ait.ac.th/

ContinueIn the month of February, a thermo-graphic sensor

from Prof. Fukui, Keio University, Japan will be used to conduct a short distance experiment for the fire intensity and temperature measurement in both the existing experiment sites (7 sites) and if possible real forest fires where can be reached quickly to study the characteristics of forest fire and compared field data with remote sensing data.

Note: There might be a problem of power source in the field!!!

ACRoRS, SAT, AIT January 22, 2002 Phuket Thailand: http://www.acrors.ait.ac.th/

Expected Contributions

To demonstrate that the temporal burn scars monitoring is possible in order to better understanding of forest fire behaviors and characteristics with higher visiting frequency.

To show a reliability of early active forest fires detection system by a satellite.

To demonstrate the utilization of satellite technologies for active forest fires detection and monitoring in DDF and MDF.

ACRoRS, SAT, AIT January 22, 2002 Phuket Thailand: http://www.acrors.ait.ac.th/

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To show the values and contributions of the ground receiving station and its applications at Asian Institute of Technology to the region.

To contribute the MODIS’ fire products post-launch validation in order to optimize and improve future sensor by providing feed back to the MODIS Cal/Val Team.

ACRoRS, SAT, AIT January 22, 2002 Phuket Thailand: http://www.acrors.ait.ac.th/

In Conclusion

This research will be carried out firstly to develop threshold values and evaluate in order to determine and improve the detection accuracy using MODIS with new parameters such as NDVI, forest history, and local conditions and identify the best suitable threshold values of contexture algorithm for Dry Dipterocarp and Mixed Deciduous forest in Thailand.

ACRoRS, SAT, AIT January 22, 2002 Phuket Thailand: http://www.acrors.ait.ac.th/

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Attempt to develop algorithm for forest fire burn scars detection and monitor the forest fire behaviors and characteristics by high frequency burn scars observation using MODIS instead of annual estimation in order to improve the future allocation of forest fire fighting resources in Thailand.

ACRoRS, SAT, AIT January 22, 2002 Phuket Thailand: http://www.acrors.ait.ac.th/Thank you very much