USING PASSIVE AND ACTIVE REMOTE SENSING IN

COMBINATION WITH GIS FOR BUSHFIRE DETECTION

Yingxin Zuo and Linlin Ge

School of Surveying and Spatial Information Systems,
University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia
yingxin.zuo@student.unsw.edu.au

Abstract
Hundreds of bushfires in February 2009 have devastated huge forest and bush
land in the Australian state of Victoria. Thick haze covered large areas for months.
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is capable to acquire images in the presence of
cloud cover and haze, which can complement the existing fire monitoring systems
based on optical remote sensing. This paper represents first results of fire mapping
obtained with multitemporal ALOS PALSAR images acquire before, during and
after bushfires. Fire-disturbing areas detected by ALOS PALSAR were verified
using Landsat TM data.

1. Introduction

Bushfire in Australia is one of the most frequent, severe and extensive disasters in
the world. Especially in February 2009 the Australian state of Victoria was
devastated by hundreds of bushfires with 173 people lost their lives. The fires
directly impacted 51 townships and damaged over 2,200 homes, along with many
businesses, schools and facilities. The damage to the forest resources such as
timber and plantations are unknown due to a lack of comprehensive data. Data is
also lacking for the effects on the precious and fragile ecosystem of tropical
rainforest, on species richness, soil erosion and CO2 emission fixed in the biomass.
(Siegert et. al., 2000)

The use of remote sensing data is an efficient way to analyse the ecological and
economic impacts of these large scale fire events. Several remote sensing data
were undertaken to determine the extent of the 2009 black Saturday bushfires in
Victoria using optical sensors, including HJ-1B, Landsat, MODIS.

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However, continuous monitoring of bushfires in remote and difficult to reach terrain
is a challenge. The use of optical and active remote sensing technology and
geographic information systems (GIS) can provide additional information for
estimating bushfire danger, detecting active fires, estimating burned area,
quantifying emissions products, estimating fire damage and monitoring post-fire
ecosystem recovery.

With the aim of improving surveillance over the Australian forest, the GEOS
implemented a project about bushfire detection by active remote sensing. The
project has been based mainly on visible/near-infrared images acquired by the
Chinese satellite B of the Environmental Monitoring and Hazard Mitigation (HJ-1B).
However, despite the frequent revisit capability of HJ-1B (Time), cloud cover
remains a severe problem, especially during the rainy season. Although no studies
have yet been undertaken to quantify the actual impact of cloud cover over the
detection of bushfire scars, cloud cover still constitutes obstacle in the effort of the
bushfire detection.

Using L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) acquired by the Japanese Earth
Resources Satellite (JERS-1), Almeida-Filho et al., (2007) showed that, when
acquired consistently on a repetitive basis, L-band SAR could effectively
complement optical data in an operational programme of mapping and monitoring
deforestation in Amazonia. This present study is an additional contribution to this
theme, now involving the analysis of L-band SAR data acquired by the Phased
Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar sensor (PALSAR) on board the
Japanese Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS).

In this paper, based on optical map, the examples on the variances in SAR image
intensity and texture observed in ALOS PALSAR data collected over one of the
Victoria bushfires are represented. Then the potential causes for their appearance
are also discussed.

2. Study Area

This study area is located in the Australian state of Victoria. This bushfires had a
series of bushfires during extreme bushfire-weather conditions, resulting in
Australia's highest ever loss of life from a bushfire. This bushfires began in
February 7, 2009, and a large area was burned over the next month and eventually
covered over 450,000 hectares (4,500 km²). The specific site studied is located at
the Dippsland region, east of the Victoria. Fig.1. presents a portion of an ALOS
PALSAR image collected after the fire season over the area of Dargo, Victoria,
Australia.

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 Fig.1. Location of the ALOS PALSAR test site in Victoria State, Australia

3. Images Used

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched ALOS in autumn of

2005. Travelling in an orbit altitude of 691 km with a 46 days revisit period , the
satellite carries three remote-sensing instruments: the Panchromatic Remote-
sensing Instrument for Stereo Mapping (PRISM), the Advanced Visible and Near-
Infrared Radiometer type 2 (AVNIR-2), and the PALSAR. An additional unique
characteristic of ALOS is the systematic observation strategy, which has been
implemented as a foreground mission to all three sensors, to provide consistent
wall-to-wall observations as fine spatial resolution of all land areas on the Earth on
a semi-annual basis during the lifetime of the satellite (Rosenqvist et. al., 2007).
PALSAR will not only provide enhanced sensor performance, including full
polarimetry, variable off-nadir viewing and ScanSAR operations, but also feature
an entirely new acquisition concept, aiming at spatially and temporally consistent,
global coverage on a repetitive basis, to accommodate geo- and bio-physical
parameter retrieval over semi-continental scales.(Rosenqvist et. al., 2004) The
PALSAR is a response from the vegetation structure and thus can be used for
discrimination between areas of forests, regeneration, and open land.

The ALOS PALSAR scene used in this study is concerned that the images are
collected before, during and after the fire. This study selected L-band synthetic
aperture radar (PALSAR) of the Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) Fine
Beam Single Polarisation (FBS) horizontal/horizontal (HH) intensity data acquired
during the Dec 2008 to Jul 2009 in the ALOS tracks 378, 379, 381 and 382. The
frame numbers range from 643 to 644 (Fig.2). These data were received from the
Earth Remote Sensing Data Analysis Center (ERSDAC).

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 Table.1: Acquisition Dates of Images Used in the Study
Satellite ALOS Landsat 5

Date 30 December 2008 24 January 2009

14 February 2009 25 February 2009

2 July 2009

Fig.2. Mosaic of PALSAR ALOS data (HH): 36°S-38°S, 144°E -148°E, ERSDAC

4. Intensity Difference Analysis

4.1 Methods:

As far as the first item is the georeferenced backscatter intensity time series (in dB)
were generated from ALOS PALSAR images by implementing a processing chain
including radiometric calibration, co-registration, slant to ground range conversion.
Some details about these pre-processing steps are reported here below.

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These data are multilooked to give a pixel spacing of 50*50 m in ground range
geometry, a factor of two less than that provided by the full-resolution FBS data. A
beneficial consequence is the almost-complete elimination of speckle. The
afterward processing is digital elevation-model-based orthorectification. After the
calibration step, the data were co-registered. The following step was to deliver data
in slant range geometry. geocoding and speckle reduction. The data are
georeferenced and mosaicked.

The ALOS images were all co-registered. A gamma speckle removal filter was
applied. For any meaningful and quantitative analysis of multi-temporal images, it
is necessary to convert the DN values of these intensity images into their
corresponding radar backscattering coefficient (σ°) values. A variety of factors
influence backscatter strength including satellite ground-track, incidence angle,
radar polarization, surface roughness, and the dielectric properties of the surface.
Different objects having same digital number may likely to correspond to different
backscatter values. Hence, more accurate analysis of microwave remote sensing
image can be done on backscatter value images. Therefore, the ALOS scene was
then converted from amplitude data format to normalized radar cross section (σ°):

σ°= 10 log10[DN 2]+CF,

where DN is digital number, CF is calibration factor, and CF= -83.0 dB.

Then the intensity images before, during and after fire were compared and
composited to RGB image. In the RGB image, the three display channels have
been independently stretched to accentuate the different classes.

a. Before: 2008/12/30 b. During: 2009/02/14 c. Subtracted image (During-Before)

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d. Before: 2008/12/30 e. After: 2009/07/02 f. Subtracted image (After-Before)
Fig.3. Intensity images before, during and after bushfire and the subtracted intensity
images

Fig.4. Multitemporal composite of ALOS PALSAR i mages showing locations of different

classes (R: 02 Jul 2009; G: 14 Feb 2009; B: 30 Dec 2008).

The values of radar backscatter coefficient for the different land cover classes are
tabulated in table.1. The time series of radar backscattering coefficient for these
classes are shown in Fig.5.

Table.2. Radar backscatter of different land cover types in ALOS images.

Class Radar Backscatter (dB)

Before-fire Fire-during After-fire

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 I. Burnt Forests -13.029683 -11.924034 -7.741384

II. Unburned Forests -15.305284 -14.772500 -13.070506

(Dark)

III. Unburned Forests -8.117753 -7.295003 -4.004433

(Bright)

IV. Farm Area -24.561329 -25.180272 -20.797590

V. Clear Land -24.123776 -24.239640 -20.981786

Fig.5. Radar backscatter signatures of ALOS images over different period of time.

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Fig.6. Radar coefficient of standard deviation of different land cover types in ALOS images
over different period of time.

4.2 Results and Discussions:

The area affected by fire in 2009 is delineated on the SAR image as a region which
is brighter than the adjacent undisturbed forests.

Fig.3a shows the intensity images before and during the fire and the subtracted
image of above two images. There are hardly seen the intensity differences of
burnt areas between two images before and during the fire in the subtracted image.
SAR backscattering intensity of burnt areas seems not change a lot. This
subtracted image cannot be used for the extraction of total burnt areas by the fire.
But the backscattering intensity of burnt areas after bushfire (Fig.2e) clearly
increases compared with that before and during the fire (Fig.2c). In the subtracted
intensity image (Fig.2f), intensity of burnt areas can be seen clearly increasingly
after the fire.

The SAR backscatter of all of land cover classes generally remains the similar
during the bushfire period and increases after the fire from table.2. The reason why
SAR backscattering generally increases after fire might be that the season
changes to the winter and the land become moist due to rain. The backscatter of
burnt area (Class I) after fire significantly increases the most which is 4.3 dB more
than -13.030 dB before fire. Ground verification showed that this can be attributed
to a partial or complete removal of the plant cover. Although reduced volume
scattering, bare, dry soil and a decreasing dielectric constant may result in a low
backscatter, in fact the forests are probably severe burned and only leave the trunk
of the trees. The strong backscatter is possibly due to the dead vegetation stands

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on moist ground, resulting in an efficient double-bounce scattering configuration for
radar backscattering.

Compared with burnt forest, bright unburned forest (Class III) already has a
stronger SAR backscattering at -8.118 dB before fire due to sunny aspect and
increases to -4.000 dB after bushfire. And unburned forest (Class II) with
mountainous shadow just has a slight increase after fire. The other two classes
(Class IV and V) showed weak radar backscattering due to surface backscattering.
Unburned areas after have the similar pattern of change in the SAR backscatter
signal due to the more moist ground. But as L-band microwave has stronger
penetration depth, the sensitivity to the moisture conditions on the ground is
probably less.

The burned and unburned areas seems not to be discriminated remarkably by

backscatter in the Fig.5 since values for the burnt and unburned classes resume to
similar levels. However, the areas can be discriminated using the coefficient of
standard deviation (stdev). In Fig.6, the stdev is plotted for each land cover type.
The astonishing increase in stdev in the class burnt forest (Class I) can be
explained by the fact that bushfire finally affected forest area. In unburned areas,
the stdev general remained constant or increased only slightly.

5. Band Ratioing and Texture Transformations Analysis

5.1 Methods:

After the preprocessing step, each ALOS PALSAR product was speckle filtered
(Gamma Map) and followed by two subsequent texture filtering steps with two
kernel sizes: 7x7 and 21x21. Then the three resulting images from one scene were
combined to a RGB image by assigning each filter product to a different color
channel. This RGB image combines information on radar backscatter as well as
from image texture. Adjacent scenes were mosaicked and map-registered. Band
ratio approach was done with the filtered RGB products (speckle reduced and
texture enhanced) and the output band ratios were then combined towards a new
RGB colour composite (Fig.7). In this study, three fist-order statistics approaches
that are used for texture synthesis are experimented, including data range, mean
and variance.

Textural properties of these images were smooth enough to apply a maximum

likelihood classification after the identification of training areas representing. Areas
that have been burnt in February appear in red colour in the composite ALOS
PALSAR image. To quantify and evaluate the burnt areas we performed a
supervised classification of the ratio-image and transferred the result to ArcGIS

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a. R: 21×21 ratio range texture filter; G: 7×7 ratio gamma map; B: 7×7 ratio range texture
filter.

b. R: 21×21 ratio mean texture filter; G: 7×7 ratio gamma map; B: 7×7 ratio mean texture
filter.

c. R: 21×21 ratio variance texture filter; G: 7×7 ratio gamma filter; B: 7×7 ratio variance
texture filter.
Fig.7. Comparisons of ALOS PALSAR RGB combination maps based on band ratio
approach (30 Dec 2008 and 2 Jul 2009).

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5.2 Results and discussions

As differences in brightness values from identical surface materials are caused by

topographic slope and aspect, shadows, or seasonal changes in sunlight
illumination angle and intensity. These conditions may hamper the ability of an
interpreter or classification algorithm to identify correctly surface materials or land
use in a remotely sensed image. Fortunately, ratio transformations of the remotely
sensed data can be applied to reduce the effects of such environmental conditions.
In addition to minimising the effects of environmental factors, ratios may also
provide unique information not available in any single band that is useful for
discriminating between soils and vegetation (Satterwhite, 1984).

The ratio image of the texture enhanced and speckle reduced channels detects
changes not only according to image brightness, i.e. radar backscatter, but also to
image texture, since these channels are included in the ratioing process.

Comparison among the three resulting maps represents that the resulting image
Fig.7a by ratio range texture filtered images contains mainly change information,
while topographical information does not appear since it remains unchanged.
Areas, in which no changes occur appear in green, while areas with change
appear in red and magenta tones, depending on the occurred change. Fig.7b.
shows burnt areas in dark blue and unburned areas in light blue using ratio mean
texture filtered images. The combination of ratio variance texture filtered band and
speckle reducing gamma filtered band results in Fig.7c, which represents burned
scars to be light yellow while unburned areas to be light green. Based on the burn
scars in Landsat TM image, the RGB combination map of ratio range texture
enhanced image and gamma speckle reduced image shows the best result in this
study.

Fig.8. Production of a Landsat TM RGB image.

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When fire has affected vegetation, visual inspection of filtered ALOS PALSAR
images showed that there is a remarkable change in radar backscatter and/or
image texture. Band ratio method is based on the multitemporal evaluation of the
changes that occur between two ALOS PALSAR overpasses before and after the
fires, so this approach was employed for detecting burned areas. This approach
aims to highlight the changes and to separate this information from unchanged
backscatter signals.

Adding textural information is considered as the key to improve the visual

interpretation of SAR images. If large filter kernels are deployed not only direct
backscatter from objects is highlighted but also its variance of speckle, which
seems to object specific is integrated. Our results indicate clearly that ALOS
PALSAR data has a potential for monitoring land use and deforestation activities.

Visual interpretation of texture enhanced RGB-image products of ALOS PALSAR

is a good method for deforestation and land-use monitoring in Victoria areas. When
separating clear-cuts from plantation or shifting cultivation in single scenes, some
problems may occur in areas of undulating terrain. This problem can be partly
overcome by using ALOS time series.

6. Conclusions

There are two analysis of burnt scars changing in ALOS PALSAR data in this study,
while the Landsat TM is considered to be a reference data. The first part is
analysing intensity changing of burnt scars. After analysing the radar backscatter
coefficient and coefficient of standard deviation, some changes by fire were found
in parts of the study areas. These changes occur mainly in some areas with forest
or plantations while the relatively well preserved forests of the mountainous region
remain almost unchanged. Burnt scars appear considerably brighter in the intensity
image.

The second approach is using band ratio and texture transformation to analyse the
change in burnt scars. This approach can highlight the changes and separate this
information from unchanged backscatter signals. In this study, adding textural
information is also considered as the key to improve the visual interpretation of
SAR images. Since L-band has longer wavelength to penetrate the forest and
ALOS PALSAR has a good special resolution, our results indicate clearly that
ALOS PALSAR data has a potential for monitoring land use and deforestation
activities,

However, the detection of burnt scars by intensity changing may not provide
remarkable results, because the backscatter typically does not vary significantly
during during and shortly after the fire periods. Further studying should focus on
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integrating intensity, coherence and dual-polarisation of ALOS PALSAR to monitor
the bushfires.

Acknowledgements

Thanks A/Professor Linlin Ge for supporting remotely sensed data and constructive
comments on my research. All members in Geodesy and Earth Observing Systems
Group (GEOS) of University of New South Wales provide suggestion on my
studying.

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