The power of remote sensing and its application to the media

I usually say that if I would study something new it will be something related with the remote sensing. As I am always searching for how learn more about this area I always try to apply when I have an oportunity to.

Unfortunately the Iberian peninsula usually suffers every summer more fires than anyone would want, either intentionally or by chance. This year a fatal fire in Pedrogao, Portugal killed more than 60 people. A simple search in Nasa’s Earth Explorer reveal the magnitude of this misfortune.

image

image Capture from the lesson about how to use the basic algorythms of any GIS (buffers, clips, difference, etc.).

The Landsat 8 sensor allows us to appreciate these consequences on the ground. On the left, a shot taken the 15th of june, on the right the first of july of 2017.

I saw people work with Landsat’s bands and calculate several index to extract information about like NVDI or NBR. I found Nasa’s product guide and this paper from the 2008 International Journal of Remote Sensing write by a spanish investigation group of Cordoba Univeristy.

Thanks to Luca Congedo’s Semi-Automatic Classification Plugin for QGIS is easy to pre processing images, make post processing of classifications or realize raster operations.

I have had the opportunity to apply my new and humble knowledge twice. In the context of Portugal fire we wrote a feature about how similar is the scenario in Spain. I analyzed the fire occured in La Palma island that burned 7% of its land.

la palma

P. N. de la Caldera

de Taburiente

Sta. Cruz de la Palma

Superficie afectada

por el incendio de 2016

16 km

Foco del incendio

Océano

Atlántico

Canarias

la palma

P. N. de la Caldera

de Taburiente

Océano

Atlántico

Sta. Cruz de la Palma

Superficie afectada

por el incendio de 2016

16 km

Foco del incendio

Canarias

la palma

P. N. de la Caldera

de Taburiente

Sta. Cruz de

la Palma

Océano Atlántico

16 km

Foco del incendio

Canarias

Superficie afectada

por el incendio de 2016

la palma

P. N. de la Caldera

de Taburiente

Sta. Cruz de

la Palma

Océano Atlántico

16 km

Foco del incendio

Canarias

Superficie afectada

por el incendio de 2016

la palma

P. N. de la Caldera

de Taburiente

Sta. Cruz de la Palma

Océano Atlántico

16 km

Foco del incendio

Canarias

Superficie afectada

por el incendio de 2016

The same weekend that we launch this feature a new devastating fire was declared in Donana’s Natural Park in southwest of Spain. We had to wait until new post-fire data was available to make the comparision and apreciate the fire magnitude.

It was the second chance to calculate the Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) index from Landsat 8 bands in Donana fire and estimate its magnitude.

Golfo de Cádiz

Municipio de

Huelva

Huelva

Área afectada

por el incendio

Camping Doñana

Río Tinto

Matalascañas

huelva

Parque Nacional

de Doñana

Parque Natural

de Doñana

Río Guadalquivir

Áreas de Influencia

Socioeconómica

Sevilla

Sevilla

10 Km

Norte

Extensión del

municipio de Huelva

Golfo de Cádiz

Huelva

Área afectada

por el incendio

Camping Doñana

Río Tinto

huelva

Matalascañas

Áreas de Influencia

Socioeconómica

Parque Nacional

de Doñana

Parque Natural

de Doñana

Río Guadalquivir

Sevilla

Sevilla

Extensión del

municipio de Sevilla

10 Km

Norte

Río Odiel

Río Tinto

Extensión del

municipio de Sevilla

Extensión del

municipio de Huelva

Sevilla

huelva

Huelva

Río Guadalquivir

Área afectada

por el incendio

Áreas de Influencia

Socioeconómica

Parque Natural

de Doñana

Camping

Doñana

Sevilla

Parque Nacional

de Doñana

Matalascañas

Golfo de Cádiz

cádiz

20 Km

Extensión del

municipio de Sevilla

Río Odiel

Río Tinto

Extensión del

municipio de Huelva

Sevilla

huelva

Río Guadalquivir

Huelva

Área afectada

por el incendio

Dos Hermanas

Áreas de Influencia

Socioeconómica

Parque Natural

de Doñana

Utrera

Camping

Doñana

Sevilla

Parque Nacional

de Doñana

Matalascañas

Lebrija

Golfo de Cádiz

cádiz

20 Km