Published works

This project brings together researchers from around the world including RMIT, the German Aerospace Agency DLR, CSIRO, the University of Twente in the Netherlands and the Bureau of Meteorology. The project will attribute fire landscapes using the latest satellite based thermal earth observation systems for active fire surveillance. Structure from Motion (SfM), Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) and hyperspectral technologies and techniques will also be used for quantifying and mapping changes in the landscape before, and after, a fire event. This report provides a background to the project and discusses the key research questions being asked, and how these can help support end user operations. The methodology used to address each of the research questions is outlined, and key achievements across the last year are described. The report concludes with activities planned for the year ahead and a list of currently integrated project members.

Highlights of 2014-2015 have included:

• Field experiments from the previous year published in Gupta, V., Reinke, K., Jones, S., Wallace, L. and Holden, L. (2015) “Assessing Metrics for Estimating Fire Induced Change in the Forest Understorey Structure using Terrestrial Laser Scanning”, Remote Sensing, 7, pp. 8180-8201.
• New datasets have been collected and are being prepared for publication in Hillman, S., Wallace, L., Hally, B. and Reinke, K. (in prep.) “Evaluating New Terrestrial Techniques for Estimating Surface and Near-Surface Biomass” to be submitted to Ecological Management and Restoration.
• A new full-time postdoctoral research fellow (selected in consultation with a representative end-user) and a new PhD candidate join the research team. Additional short-term research appointments have also been filled.  
• Attendance and poster presentations at AFAC, Wellington 2014, and the BNH-CRC RAF, Melbourne 2014.
• Associated PhD student presents his work on “Identifying Spectral Domains and Metrics to Quantify Burn Severity in Australian Dry Sclerophyll Forests” at Geospatial Science Research (GSR), Melbourne 2015.
• New end-users join the project from Queensland Fire and Emergency Services, and SA Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources.
• Project spin-off studies create a fire history atlas used to report the spatio-temporal wildfire patterns in peri-urban areas of Australian capital cities, and more broadly across southern Australia. 
• Work on synthetic landscape modelling for fire detection and tracking continues. Initial results for minimum area and fire temperatures detected by TET-1 produced and being extended to compare to other active fire detection and monitoring space systems.
• Fire temperature mapping and monitoring using manual and electronic fire pyrometers trialed during a prescribed burn with Department of Environment, Land and Water Planning in western Melbourne, Victoria.