Applications

Science
Natural Resources Management

Scientific Application of MODIS Data

• SAFARI 2000 Pyrogenic Emissions from MODIS, Southern Africa, September 2000

The recently generated MODIS burned area product (Roy, 2003) over southern Africa for the month of September 2000 was used to calculate spatially-explicit regional biomass burning emissions from grassland and woodland fires for a number of trace gases and particulates at 1 km spatial resolution. A dynamic regional fuel load model (Hely et al., 2003) developed for southern Africa in support of SAFARI 2000 fire emissions modeling is used to compute spatially explicit southern Africa fuel load data. Regional grassland and woodland emissions are estimated using ecosystem-specific emission factor algorithms for carbon dioxide (CO₂), carbon monoxide (CO), methane (CH₄), non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHC) and particulate matter with diameter less than 2.5 µm (PM2.5) for southern African savanna fires (Korontzi et al., 2003). We have expanded the emissions database for this region by incorporating emission factors for a variety of compounds, including oxygenated volatile organic compounds (OVOC), halocarbons, nitrogen oxides (NO_x), ammonia (NH₃), sulfur dioxide (SO₂), hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and particulate ionic components measured during the SAFARI 2000 dry season field campaign (Yokelson et al., 2003; Sinha et al., 2003). This research is described in Korontzi et al. (2004). Pyrogenic emissions data can be obtained by contacting Dr. Stefania Korontzi (stef@hermes.geog.umd.edu).

Image Caption: MODIS CO₂ emissions, southern Africa, September 2000. Light grey = Not mapped by MODIS due to insufficient cloud free observations, Dark grey = Not considered by MODIS due to ephemeral water or inland water, Light blue = water.

References

Hely, C., Dowty, P. R., Alleaume, S., Caylor, K. K., Korontzi, S., Swap, R. J., Shugart, H. H., & Justice C. O. (2003a). Regional fuel load for two climatically contrasting years in southern Africa. Journal of Geophysical Research, 108(D13), 8475, doi:10.1029/2002JD002341.

Korontzi, S., D. E. Ward, R. A. Susott, R. J. Yokelson, C. O. Justice, P. V. Hobbs, E. A. H. Smithwick, and W. M. Hao, Seasonal variation and ecosystem dependence of emission factors for selected trace gases and PM2.5 for southern African savanna fires, J. Geophys. Res., 108(D24), 4758, doi:10.1029/2003JD003730, 2003. Download here.

Korontzi, S., Roy, D. P., Justice C. O., and Ward D. E., Modeling and sensitivity analysis of fire emissions in southern Africa during SAFARI 2000, Remote Sensing of Environment, 92(2), 255-275, 2004.

Roy, D. P., (2003). SAFARI 2000 July and September MODIS 500m Burned Area Products for Southern Africa. In Nickeson, J., D. Landis, J. L. Privette, (eds.). 2003. SAFARI 2000 CD-ROM Series. Volume 3. CD-ROM. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, U.S.A. Available from Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A. [http://www.daac.ornl.gov/].

Sinha, P., Hobbs, P. V., Yokelson, R. J., Bertschi, I. T., Blake, D. R., Simpson, I. J., Gao, S., Kirchstetter, T. W., and Novakov, T. (2003). Emissions of trace gases and particles from biomass burning in southern Africa. Journal of Geophysical Research, 108(D13), 8487, doi:10.1029/2002JD002325.

Yokelson, R. J., Bertschi, I. T., Christian, T. J., Hobbs, P. V., Ward, D. E., and Hao, W. M. (2003). Trace gas measurements in nascent, aged, and cloud-processed smoke from African savanna fires by airborne Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (AFTIR). Journal of Geophysical Research, 108(D13), 8478, doi:10.1029/2002JD002322.

Application of MODIS data in Support of Natural Resources Management

• Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation (BAER)

The BAER team is a group of multidisciplinary scientists and natural resource managers from several federal and state agencies. The BAER teams are responsible for evaluating burned areas that pose a threat to life, property or natural resources due to post-fire flooding and erosion soon after a fire moves through. Satellite imagery assists the BAER teams in their assessments and analyses of the burned areas.