Remote Sensing Application Center (ReSAC) has taken part with scientific research on “Forest cover monitoring and forest damage assessment in the frame of GMES projects – Case study in Bulgaria” under the 7FP Project EUFODOS (European Forest Downstream Se

In the frame of the project ReSAC will develop services to the Executive Forest Agency (EFA), Bulgaria, related to GIS databases for the forest cover and forest fire infrastructure in Bulgaria, and rapid damage assessment in the forest areas due to different disasters.

Within the project is laid down preparation of products by the Forest Core Mapping Services (FCMS) of Programme GMES which include a map of forest cover extent (2011/2012/2013), map of forest density (2011/2013), map of forest change (2011/2013).

The downstream services are based on the processing and enhancement of the FCMS and are summarized in the following three services: preparation and update of map and GIS database for the forest areas and forest area changes; preparation and update of map and GIS database for forest fire infrastructure; rapid mapping for disaster management. The services which ReSAC will develop will support the EFA in the future forest inventory in Bulgaria as well as in the assessment of natural hazard damages in the forest area.

Remote Sensing Application Center (ReSAC) has taken part with scientific paper on the 8th International Workshop of the European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories (EARSeL) Special Interest Group (SIG) on Forest Fires, Stresa, Italy, 20 – 21 October 2011. The main subject of the workshop was the operational use of remote sensing in forest fire management, paper contributions were focused on local to global RS and GIS applications on:

• Pre-fire assessment planning and management,
• Fire detection and monitoring
• Post-fire evaluation and management

The study presented there is fulfilled in the frame of EUFODOS Project and involves assessing the damage from forest fires affected areas with coniferous forests in southwestern Bulgaria, near Gostun village. It was represented the combination of different data source such as satellite images as reference, post event images and vector data – Forest management plans to assess the damaged forest vegetation type in burned area.

The research shows the advantage of the use of recent satellite images for more accurate detection of the area subject to forest fires. On the other hand only the satellite images and especially high and medium resolution data could not give accurate enough information on forest species and forest density – values which are of high importance for the foresters when calculating the forest damages after disasters. Using the combined approach with the use of Forest management plans and detailed classification we overcome the limitations of the datasets and provide more accurate results to decision-makers.

Main stages of work related to processing and analyses of the satellite images: а) classification of the fire extent, b) land cover classification from the reference image, c) determination of crown and surface fire and types of forest subject to it

Main stages in the processing of the FMPs and related analyses: а) update of the FMPs, b) map of the main forest types subject to crown and surface fire (not-corrected FMP), c) map of the main forest types subject to crown and surface fire (corrected FMP), d) Classes from updated forest management plan 2011 in crown and surface fire, e)Forest types and their age in crown and surface fire