Investigation of Fire Regime Using MODIS Sensor Imagery Case study: Eastern Part of South Kordofan State

ABSTRACT

South Kordofan State is rich in its natural resources mainly vegetation cover, the area characterized by dense forests, rich pasture and arable land, as well as the occurrence of wildfire in the dry season, There is no suitable information available on when, and where, how often and how much wildfires, large areas of forests and pastures are subject to wildfires in the dry season. The objective of study is to investigate the fire regime (extend, seasonality and frequency of wildfires) using remote sensing and GIS techniques through MODIS data. The study was conducted in Eastern part of South Kordofan State for season (2000-2001) to (2013-2014) in order to investigate the fire regime through burned area map using a collection of 32 images per each dry season )448 images for fourteen seasons(which were processed to extract the burned area. Envi 4.7 and Arc Map10.0software were used for image processing and maps production. The study showed that the largest area burned was in season (2012-2013) then season (2003-2004) and the lowest area burned was in season (2013 - 2014) and then season (2000-2001).In order to generate a fire frequency map each three successive number of times burn have been put into a Categories .The study revealed important results about fire regime such as the fire season which is generally start in the mid of September and continue up to the beginning of May with peak in November and MODIS 8 day surface reflectance 250 m spatial resolution images are showed high efficiency in burned area mapping .The frequency map revealed that the higher fire frequency is located in Eastern, western and Southern parts of study area. The positive and negative impacts of wild land fire on flora and fauna needs more detailed studies.