Thursday, July 16, 2015

Abstract for Final Presentation

Forest fires rage throughout various ecosystems in the world, causing intense damage to the areas through which they go.  Analysis of forest fire and its effect on an ecosystem can aid biologists, ecologists, and other professionals in further understanding that particular ecosystem; it can also aid in solving and preventing problems.The objective for the six week internship is to discover, using remote sensing, how wildfires and the fire scars they leave impact vegetation growth patterns.   Specifically, this project is looking at the Akagera National Park located in northeastern Rwanda.  Through the use of Landsat satellite images and various indices, one can identify both burn scars and the severity of the burn scars by using the NBR, or normalized burn ratio, which helps to quantify severity of the burns.  Likewise, a variety of other indices can help to quantify vegetative health and growth.  Through the use of these various indices as well as other tools, one can observe and analyze the images before and after a fire in order to note any changing vegetative growth patterns over time.

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