Real time monitoring of active forest fires for better natural resource management in developing countries
Abstract
The Natural Resources Institute (NRI) is an executive agency of Britain's Overseas Development Organisation (ODA). As an integral part of the British governments overseas aid programme, the principal aim of the institutes work is to alleviate poverty and hardship in developing countries by increasing the productivity of their renewable natural resources. Remote sensing offers a powerful means of providing information to address theses problems. NRI has significant experience of operational and experimental vegetation fire detection through UK Overseas Development Administration (ODA) funded projects in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America. Regular satellite overviews of daily fire activity during the burning seasons provide a unique measure of the scale, location, timing and (likely) intensity of these events. The use of dynamic systems that are continuously updated, provide timely information on burn events and 'account' for changes in natural resources over time. Research and operational work to provide developing countries with the tools to carry out real time monitoring of active vegetation fires by direct reception of satellite data is ongoing. Already, provincial and national forestry departments are beginning to use NOAA satellites for fire detection, fire risk assessment, and determination of macro changes in vegetation status. These activities are described for different regions of the world
Citation
Downey, I. D.; Ceccato, P.; Flasse, S. P.; Navarro, P.; Trigg, S. N.; Williams, J. B. Real time monitoring of active forest fires for better natural resource management in developing countries. EARSeL Advances in Remote Sensing (1996) 4 (4) 76-82.