Publications

Rodrigues, JA; Libonati, R; Pereira, AA; Nogueira, JMP; Santos, FLM; Peres, LF; Santa Rosa, A; Schroeder, W; Pereira, JMC; Giglio, L; Trigo, IF; Setzer, AW (2019). How well do global burned area products represent fire patterns in the Brazilian Savannas biome? An accuracy assessment of the MCD64 collections. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION, 78, 318-331.

Abstract
Knowledge about the current fire dynamics in the Brazilian Savannas (Cerrado) relies heavily on satellite-derived burned area (BA) products applied at the biome level. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of studies analyzing the consistency of available available satellite products concerning BA location and extension for the region. Accordingly, we performed an accuracy assessment of the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) collection 6 BA product (MCD64 /C6) over 222,768,000 ha encompassing the Brazilian Cerrado. We used reference data derived from Landsat-8 OLI to perform an intercomparison of MCD64/C6 with 1) the previous collection 5.1 (C5.1); 2) independent active fires from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS); and 3) recent land use patterns. The results of the comparison between C6 and C5.1 indicate that the new collection decreases the omission error in 90% of the analyzed area and increases the burn hits, providing improved BA estimates in 61% of the region. However, the MCD64 product increases the overall commission errors in 74% of the area. The MCD64/C6 product showed a high coefficient of correlation with active fires independently detected by VIIRS (tau = 0.74). For both MCD64 collections 5.1 and 6, the different accuracy assessment measures exhibited a marked performance deterioration from the north towards the south. The largest bum scars and total affected areas occur mainly across the northern Cerrado, explaining the better performance in that area. Conversely, greater inaccuracies were found in the southern Cerrado area, where natural vegetation has been converted into pasture and cropland, leading to fragmented landscapes and small fire patches. Finally, the BAs mapped by both collections were similar in location albeit divergent in the magnitude, with C6 detecting 21% more area than C5.1 during the year 2015.

DOI:
10.1016/j.jag.2019.02.010

ISSN:
0303-2434