A multisensor and multitemporal approach to assess wildfire occurrence and landscape disturbance at Marsden Moor Estate, West Yorkshire.

UK peatlands are of great environmental importance, they are a major carbon store locking-in approximately 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon and cover 12% of UK land area (CEH, 2021). Wildfire disturbance in UK peatlands is of growing concern. The European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) reported...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Millin-Chalabi, Gail, Langston, Benjamin, Holmes, Jasmine, Meade, Roger, Stopher, Alan, Best, Craig, Clay, Gareth, Pacheco Pascagaza, Ana Maria
Format: Conference Object
Language:English
Published: 2022
Subjects:
Wildfires
Marsden Moor
National Trust
Sentinel-2
LiDAR
Multitemporal
Multisensor
Marsden
mountain hare
Online Access:https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/publications/db93c05a-288a-42bf-95b3-6890b469a44d
Description
Summary:UK peatlands are of great environmental importance, they are a major carbon store locking-in approximately 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon and cover 12% of UK land area (CEH, 2021). Wildfire disturbance in UK peatlands is of growing concern. The European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) reported 111 burned areas for the UK in 2019 burning a total of 28,754 hectares. This is the highest total area burnt since EFFIS burned area monitoring began in 2008 with the fire season of 2018 providing the second highest record of area burnt, totalling 18,472 hectares. This research is part of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) funded project “Towards a UK fire danger rating system: Understanding fuels, fire behaviour and impacts” (https://ukfdrs.com/). Work package 1 focuses on the use of Earth Observation techniques to assess (a) the spatial distribution of vegetation fuel-loads across the UK and (b) to develop a dynamic fuel map based on seasonal change and land cover management in the South Pennines, England. This research provides some initial investigation of wildfire occurrence and landscape disturbance for the Marsden Moor Estate in the South Pennines from 2019 - 2021. The Marsden Moor Estate owned by the National Trust in West Yorkshire, UK, is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and Special Protection Area (JNCC, 2021) (https://sac.jncc.gov.uk/site/UK0030280). This blanket bog habitat is home to rare upland species such as the mountain hare and red listed Birds of Conservation Concern 4 (BoCC4) such as the lapwing, skylark and the curlew (British Trust for Ornithology, 2021). Since 2019, the National Trust reported a total of £700,000 worth of damage caused by wildfires on the Marsden Moor Estate (National Trust, 2021). Over the past three years there have been large wildfire events (26 February 2019, 22 April 2019, 23 March 2020 and 25 April 2021) with the biggest fire in April 2019 with a reported 700 hectares of peatland damaged degrading this fragile ...

Similar Items