Research Institute for Environment and Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT, 0909, Australia; Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT, 0909, Australia.
Jawoyn Association Aboriginal Corporation, 89 Victoria Highway, Katherine, NT, 0850, Australia; Fire Stick and Associates, Katherine, NT, 0850, Australia.
J Environ Manage. 2022 Jan 1;301:113864. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.113864. Epub 2021 Sep 30.
The savannas of northern Australia are amongst the most fire-prone landscapes in the world. However, over the last fifteen years, increasing effort has been put into reducing fire extent and severity using prescribed burning strategies early in the dry season. This study seeks to improve the application of strategic fire management by providing a more detailed understanding of the landscape features that impede fire spread in Australia's tropical savannas using long-term satellite-derived fire histories. Spatial analysis of fire edges in Kakadu National Park based on fine-scale (30 m) Landsat imagery found that most fires stopped along linear edges, which were primarily associated with known features (roads, rivers and cliffs). Further analysis found linear features with the highest stopping ability covered only 13% of the park but divided the whole park into smaller containment regions. The stopping power of each feature type was found to vary according to their width and to change during the fire season, results that could help plan strategic fuel reduction burns. Similar results were seen with the lower-resolution continental-scale MODIS satellite-derived edge data. The MODIS dataset provided a means for applying fire edge analysis to support planning in areas of northern Australia that lack fine scale fire history mapping.
澳大利亚北部的热带稀树草原是世界上最容易发生火灾的景观之一。然而，在过去的十五年中，人们越来越多地投入到使用规定的燃烧策略来减少火灾的范围和严重程度，这些策略是在旱季早期实施的。本研究旨在通过利用长期卫星衍生的火灾历史数据，更详细地了解澳大利亚热带稀树草原中阻碍火灾蔓延的景观特征，从而提高战略火灾管理的应用。基于精细尺度（30 米）的陆地卫星图像，对卡卡杜国家公园的火灾边缘进行空间分析，发现大多数火灾沿着线性边缘停止，这些线性边缘主要与已知特征（道路、河流和悬崖）有关。进一步的分析发现，具有最高停止能力的线性特征仅覆盖了公园的 13%，但将整个公园划分为更小的遏制区域。每种特征类型的停止能力被发现与其宽度有关，并在火灾季节发生变化，这些结果可以帮助规划战略燃料削减燃烧。在较低分辨率的大陆尺度 MODIS 卫星衍生的边缘数据中也观察到了类似的结果。MODIS 数据集为在缺乏精细尺度火灾历史测绘的澳大利亚北部地区应用火灾边缘分析提供了一种手段，以支持规划。
