Comparison of Physical-Based Models to Measure Forest Resilience to Fire as a Function of Burn Severity

We aimed to compare the potential of physical-based models (radiative transfer and pixel unmixing models) for evaluating the short-term resilience to fire of several shrubland communities as a function of their regenerative strategy and burn severity. The study site was located within the perimeter of a wildfire that occurred in summer 2017 in the northwestern Iberian Peninsula. A pre- and post-fire time series of Sentinel-2 satellite imagery was acquired to estimate fractional vegetation cover (FVC) from the (i) PROSAIL-D radiative transfer model inversion using the random forest algorithm, and (ii) multiple endmember spectral mixture analysis (MESMA). The FVC retrieval was validated throughout the time series by means of field data stratified by plant community type (i.e., regenerative strategy). The inversion of PROSAIL-D featured the highest overall fit for the entire time series (R-2 > 0.75), followed by MESMA (R-2 > 0.64). We estimated the resilience of shrubland communities in terms of FVC recovery using an impact-normalized resilience index and a linear model. High burn severity negatively influenced the short-term resilience of shrublands dominated by facultative seeder species. In contrast, shrublands dominated by resprouters reached pre-fire FVC values regardless of burn severity.

Automated summary

This study aimed to compare the potential of physical-based models for assessing the short-term resilience of shrubland communities to fire. The results showed that high burn severity negatively impacted the recovery of shrublands dominated by facultative seeder species, while shrublands dominated by resprouters were able to reach pre-fire vegetation cover regardless of burn severity.