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Linking repeat lidar with Landsat products for large scale quantification of fire-induced permafrost thaw settlement in interior Alaska

Journal Article · · Environmental Research Letters
 [1];  [2];  [1];  [3]
  1. Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL (United States)
  2. U.S. Army Cold Regions Research & Engineering Laboratory, Fort Wainwright, AK (United States)
  3. Alaska Ecoscience, Fairbanks, AK (United States)
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The permafrost–fire–climate system has been a hotspot in research for decades under a warming climate scenario. Surface vegetation plays a dominant role in protecting permafrost from summer warmth, thus, any alteration of vegetation structure, particularly following severe wildfires, can cause dramatic top–down thaw. A challenge in understanding this is to quantify fire-induced thaw settlement at large scales (>1000 km2). In this study, we explored the potential of using Landsat products for a large-scale estimation of fire-induced thaw settlement across a well-studied area representative of ice-rich lowland permafrost in interior Alaska. Six large fires have affected ~1250 km2 of the area since 2000. We first identified the linkage of fires, burn severity, and land cover response, and then developed an object-based machine learning ensemble approach to estimate fire-induced thaw settlement by relating airborne repeat lidar data to Landsat products. The model delineated thaw settlement patterns across the six fire scars and explained ~65% of the variance in lidar-detected elevation change. Our results indicate a combined application of airborne repeat lidar and Landsat products is a valuable tool for large scale quantification of fire-induced thaw settlement.
Research Organization:
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
Department of Defense’s Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program; US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Earth & Environmental Systems Science (EESS)
OSTI ID:
2424830
Journal Information:
Environmental Research Letters, Journal Name: Environmental Research Letters Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 18; ISSN 1748-9326
Publisher:
IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
environmental sciences & ecology
machine learning modeling
meteorology & atmospheric sciences
permafrost
repeat lidar
thaw settlement
wildfires