1. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC review meeting, 14-15 April 2008 Use of NASA Assets for Predicting Wildfire Potential for Forest Environments in Guatemala Rapid Prototyping Capability Project

2. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC review meeting, 14-15 April 2008 Project team Greg Easson & Laura Johnson The University of Mississippi Bill Cooke & Rekha Pillai Mississippi State University David Lewis Institute for Technology Development Inc. at Stennis Space Center Victor Hugo Ramos National Council for Protected Areas (CONAP), Guatemala Collaborators

3. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC review meeting, 14-15 April 2008 Research Question Can VIIRS data facilitate the development of a near real time forest fire potential decision support system in the tropics?

4. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 1

5. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 1

6. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 MODIS Active Fire Product (SERVIR) Fires in Mesoamerica

7. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 Shifting from Fire Detection to Determining Fire Potential Detecting Active Fire Bright spot Detecting Fire Potential Vegetation moisture content

8. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 Project Purpose To evaluate the potential of VIIRS data for monitoring vegetation moisture condition of tropical forests 1

9. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 Project objectives  To determine how select MODIS and simulated VIIRS vegetation indices compare with Keetch Byram Drought Code (KBDI) values in significant and non-significant fire years 1

10. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 Background Fire potential is the susceptibility of a location to the ignition and spread of fire. Factors include topography, vegetation type, fuel load, live and dead fuel moisture content, temperature, and humidity. KBDI is most commonly used input for measuring fire potential 1

11. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC review meeting, 14-15 April 2008 1 Keetch Byram Drought Code (KBDI)  KBDI is a drought index  Current practice of computing KBDI from point source weather data and its manual interpolation across large areas is subject to uncertainties.

12. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 1 MODIS, April 18, 2003

13. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 Rationale  Verbesselt et al (2007) found that SPOT based NDII is better correlated with KBDI compared to NDVI.  Anderson et al (2007) found MODIS-based EVI is better correlated to KBDI than NDVI or NDWI  Fensholt et al (2006) has shown that MODI- based SIWSI performs better than NDWI and NDII in predicting canopy water stress  More work is needed to identify the MODIS based vegetation index is most closely correlated with KBDI; and no work as yet has been done using VIIRS data

14. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 Vegetation indices Normalized Difference Vegetation Index NDVI = NIR (band2) - Red (band1) / NIR + Red Enhanced Vegetation Index EVI = 2.5 x (NIR + Red) / [(NIR + 6) x (Red – 7.5) x (Blue (band3) + 1)] Shortwave Infrared Water Stress Index SIWSI = NIR – SWIR2 (band 6) / NIR + SWIR2 1

15. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 Study Area Mayan Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala

16. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 1 MODIS, April 18, 2003

17. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 FIRE Potential Weather combustion model based on vegetation type Slope Vegetation Greenness

18. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 Data requirements  Keetch Byram Drought Index (KBDI)  Daily maximum temperatures  Daily 24 hour rainfall  Time series vegetation indices from 2001 to 2005  MODIS NDVI 8-day 500 meter  MODIS EVI 8-day 500 meter  MODIS SIWSI 8-day 500 meter  Simulated VIIRS NDVI 8-day 400 meter

19. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 Methods  Building a continuous KBDI for 1999 to 2005  Obtaining 8-day time series MODIS and simulated VIIRS data between 2001 to 2005  Graph NDVI, EVI, SIWSI and KBDI values for 2001 to 2005  Correlate the coefficients for the NDVI, EVI, SIWIS and KBDI 3

20. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 Project Timeline

21. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 21 Synthetic VIIRS NDVI – Surface Reflectance Based Products Time Series Product Tool Application Research Toolbox Filter Options Median Savitzky-Golay Running Mean Temporal Processing Daily Modis Spatial Options N x N Mean Median Spatial Quality Criteria Scan Angle Clouds etc. Spatial Synthesis to VIIRS GSD (~400 m) Reprojection to Application Coordinates/Grid Daily VIIRS NDVI from Surface Reflectance Filtered VIIRS NDVI Time Series (from Surface Reflectance) Model Noise Characteristics Add Scene Geometry Effects MOD09: (R,NIR) 250m GSD

22. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 1 KBDI 1999-2007

23. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 5 x 5 NVDI Values

24. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 Project Outcomes & Expected Impacts

25. The University of Mississippi Geoinformatics Center NASA MRC RPC Review Meeting: 14-15 April 2008 Greg Easson, Director UMGC  662 915 5995  geasson@olemiss.edu Contact Information : Laura Johnson research associate  662 915 5818  lj@olemiss.edu