Using MODIS Thermal Anomaly Data To Locate And Identify Natural And Anthropogenic Disturbance

Forest disturbance in the boreal forest is important for ecosystem dynamics and carbon balance studies. NASA's Terra satellite provides useful data for characterizing vegetation cover and disturbance over large area and is well suited for studies of the Siberian taiga. Time series data sets from Terra MODIS fire (MOD14) and NDVI (MOD13) products were used identify disturbance. MODIS fire product data, composited over 8 days to reduce cloud cover effects, was able to differentiate industrial thermal anomalies from land cover thermal anomalies (e.g., wildfires or agricultural burning) when combined with DMSP stable city lights data. Persistence in thermal anomaly and change in forest cover indicated by normalized difference vegetation index were used to isolate fire disturbance from industrial activities and estimate disturbance severity. ASTER image data was used to verify and quantify the disturbance for a few cases.