@article {bnh-8129, title = {Kangaroo Island Black Summer fire reconstruction}, number = {685}, year = {2021}, month = {07/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

In the 2019-20 summer, wildfire affected an area of around 200,000 hectares on Kangaroo Island, South Australia, in what has become known as the Black Summer, with significant ongoing social, economic and environmental impacts.

The Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) onboard the geostationary satellite Himawari-8 provides infrared imagery at 2km spatial resolution at nadir in 10- minute intervals. This allows wildfires to be detected and monitored in quasi-real time using the Biogeographical Region and Individual Geostationary HHMMSS Threshold (BRIGHT) algorithm (Engel, Jones and Reinke, 2020), developed in partnership between the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) and the Bushfire and Natural Hazard CRC. This report outlines the methods used to verify hotspots detected by the BRIGHT algorithm and reconstruct the Black Summer fires using spatio-temporal clustering.

}, keywords = {black summer, Fire, fire impacts, kangaroo island, reconstructions, remote sensing, Satellite}, issn = {685}, author = {Simon Ramsey and Karin Reinke and Nur Trihantoro and Simon Jones and Chermelle Engel} } @article {bnh-7505, title = {Active fire detection using the Himawari-8 satellite - annual report 2019-2020}, number = {628}, year = {2020}, month = {11/2020}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {MELBOURNE}, abstract = {

This project is a critical part of the BNHCRC{\textquoteright}s value to the broader Australian government. The government run Sentinel Hotspots application is used by all levels of government, private sector, researchers and the public.\  This project will assist the Australian government to develop and validate Himawari-8 as a data source for the Sentinel Hotspots application.\  Our vision is to create a world leading approach to monitor fire activity.\  To achieve this, we propose the use of remote sensing technologies for active fire detection and monitoring.

This project is a critical part of the BNHCRC{\textquoteright}s value to Geoscience Australia and the broader Australian government. The Sentinel Hotspots application is used by all levels of government, private sector, researchers and the public {\textendash} this system would not be trusted by those parties without sound validation. This project will continue to assist the Australian government in developing and validating the capability of the Himawari-8 data source. Further, the project will assist in the ongoing improvement of vital bushfire information acquired through state-of-the-art remote sensing technology as needed by fire and emergency management now, and into the future.

The aim this project is to next generation, remote sensing satellite information to enhance Australia{\textquoteright}s operational capabilities and information systems for bushfire monitoring across a range of spatial scales and landscapes. Ultimately the outcomes of this research will enable measures of active fires in terms of areal extent and magnitude, which in turn will have the potential to inform decisions about bushfire response, fuel hazard management and ecosystem sensitivity to fire during fire events and post-fire rehabilitation efforts.

The following sections describe the background, research approaches, key milestones, utilisation study and outputs of our Himawari-8 active fire detection research.

}, keywords = {fire detection, HIMAWARI-8, Satellite}, issn = {628}, author = {Simon Jones and Karin Reinke and Chermelle Engel} } @article {bnh-6827, title = {Active fire detection using the Himawari-8 satellite - annual report 2018-19}, number = {563}, year = {2020}, month = {04/2020}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

This project is a critical part of the BNHCRC{\textquoteright}s value to the broader Australian government. The government run Sentinel Hostpots application is used by all levels of government, private sector, researchers and the public. This project will source for the Sentinel Hotspots application. Our vision is to create a world leading approach to monitor fire activity. To achieve this, we propose the use of remote sensing technologies for active fire detection and monitoring.

This project is a critical part of the BNHCRC{\textquoteright}s value to Geoscience Australia and the broader\ Australian government. The Sentinel Hotspots application is used by all levels of government, private sector, researchers and the public {\textendash} this system would not be trusted by those parties without sound validation. This project will continue to assist the Australian government in developing and validating the capability of the Himawari-8 data source. Further, the project will assist in the ongoing improvement of vital bushfire information acquired through state-of-the-art remote sensing technology as needed by fire and emergency management now, and into the future.

The aim this project is to next generation, remote sensing satellite information to enhance Australia{\textquoteright}s operational capabilities and information systems for bushfire monitoring across a range of spatial scales and landscapes. Ultimately the outcomes of this research will enable measures of active fires in terms of areal extent and magnitude, which in turn will have the potential to inform decisions about bushfire response, fuel hazard management and ecosystem sensitivity to fire; during fire events and post-fire rehabilitation efforts.

The following sections describe the background, research approaches, key milestons, a utilisation study and outputs of our Himawari-8 active fire detection research.

}, keywords = {Active fire detection, HIMAWARI-8, Satellite}, issn = {563}, author = {Simon Jones and Karin Reinke and Chermelle Engel} } @conference {bnh-6510, title = {Detecting active fires from space using Himawari-8: a report from the regional New South Wales trial }, booktitle = {AFAC19 powered by INTERSCHUTZ - Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Research Forum}, year = {2019}, month = {12/2019}, publisher = {Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience}, organization = {Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Continuous monitoring fires over Australia using Himawari-8 geostationary satellite data (available every 10 minutes) has the potential to change lives.

Active-fire hotspots are routinely available from polar-orbiting satellites such as MODIS and VIIRS (Giglio et al. 2003; Giglio et al. 2016; Schroder et al. 2014) over Australia. Active-fire hotspots from those systems are only available a few times a day, with the specific times dictates by the satellite orbits themselves. With satellite orbits not necessarily concurring with time of maximum fire activity. In late 2015 though, the Japanese Meteorological Agency launched the Himawari-8 geostationary satellite, with full-disk observations (including Australia) available every 10 minutes (Bessho et al. 2016). These frequent observations have the potential to support continuous real-time satellite monitoring of active fires over Australia.

Download the full non-peer reviewed research proceedings\ from the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Research Forumhere.

}, keywords = {fire management, fires, monitoring, risk management, Satellite}, url = {https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/australian-journal-of-emergency-management-monograph-series/}, author = {Chermelle Engel and Stuart Matthews and Simon Jones and Karin Reinke} } @article {bnh-5056, title = {Limitations of high resolution satellite stereo imagery for estimating canopy height in Australian tropical savannas}, journal = {International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation}, volume = {75}, year = {2019}, month = {03/2019}, pages = {12}, chapter = {83}, abstract = {

Obtaining reliable measures of tree canopy height across large areas is a central element of forest inventory and carbon accounting. Recent years have seen an increased emphasis on the use of active sensors like Radar and airborne LiDAR (light detection and scanning) systems to estimate various 3D characteristics of canopy and crown structure that can be used as predictors of biomass. However, airborne LiDAR data are expensive to acquire, and not often readily available across large remote landscapes. In this study, we evaluated the potential of stereo imagery from commercially available Very High Resolution (VHR) satellites as an alternative for estimating canopy height variables in Australian tropical savannas, using a semi-global dense matching (SGM) image-based technique. We assessed and compared the completeness and vertical accuracy of extracted canopy height models (CHMs) from GeoEye 1 and WorldView 1 VHR satellite stereo pairs and summarised the factors influencing image matching effectiveness and quality.

Our results showed that stereo dense matching using the SGM technique severely underestimates tree presence and canopy height. The highest tree detection rates were achieved by using the near-infrared (NIR) band of GE1 (8{\textendash}9\%). WV1-GE1 cross-satellite (mixed) models did not improve the quality of extracted canopy heights. We consider these poor detection rates and height retrievals to result from: i) the clumping crown structure of the dominant Eucalyptus spp.; ii) their vertically oriented leaves (affecting the bidirectional reflectance distribution function); iii) image band radiometry and iv) wind induced crown movement affecting stereo-pair point matching. Our detailed analyses suggest that current commercially available VHR satellite data (0.5 m resolution) are not well suited to estimating canopy height variables, and therefore above ground biomass (AGB), in Eucalyptus dominated north Australian tropical savanna woodlands.

}, keywords = {canopy height, Satellite, Savanna, Stereo}, doi = {10.1016/j.jag.2018.10.021}, url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0303243418308390}, author = {Grigorijs Goldbergs and Stefan Maier and Shaun R Levick and Andrew C. Edwards} }