Live Fuel Moisture Content Mapping in the Mediterranean Basin Using Random Forests and Combining MODIS Spectral and Thermal Data

Live fuel moisture content (LFMC), defined as the mass of water in the foliage and small twigs relative to its total dry mass, is a key factor affecting fire potential and determining wildfire danger and activity. Fuel moisture is directly related to the amount of energy needed to evaporate water before ignition. Consequently, high moisture values reduce, or even inhibit, ignitability and subsequent fire spread.

To cover the absence of a specific model to estimate LFMC for the Mediterranean Basin at the sub-continental scale, we built an empirical model based on Random Forests (LFMCRF) and combining MODIS spectral bands, vegetation indices, land surface temperature, and the day of year as predictors. The details on the modeling and validation methods, and the accuracy of the estimates are in the related publication Cunill Camprubí et al., 2022.

This dataset contains a collection of weekly LFMC maps from February 2000 to December 2021. The maps cover the Mediterranean and part of the Temperate biomes of the Mediterranean Basin. File mapping_area_LFMC-RF_W-1.0.png shows the target mapping areas.

Metadata:

Spectral Information: MODIS MCD43A4 C.6

Land Surface Temperature: MODIS MOD11A2 C.6

Land Cover Mask: MODIS MCD12Q1 C.6

Coordinate Reference System: Native MODIS Sinusoidal

Temporal Resolution: Weekly (W)

Spatial Resolution: ~500 m

File Format: NetCDF v.4

Scale Factor: 0.01

Fundings:

The study was funded by the MICINN (RTI2018-094691-B-C31), European Union’s Horizon 2020-Research and Innovation Framework Programme under grant agreement no. 101003890 project FirEUrisk, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U20A20179, 31850410483), and the talent proposals in Sichuan Province (2020JDRC0065) from Southwest University of Science and Technology (18ZX7131).

活燃料含水率（Live Fuel Moisture Content, LFMC）被定义为植被枝叶与小枝条中的水分质量与其总干质量的比值，是影响火灾潜势、决定野火危险等级与蔓延态势的关键因子。燃料含水率直接关联引燃前水分蒸发所需的总能量。因此，较高的含水率会降低甚至抑制可燃物的引燃性及后续火势蔓延。

针对地中海盆地次大陆尺度尚无专用LFMC估算模型的现状，我们构建了基于随机森林（Random Forests, RF）的经验模型（命名为LFMCRF），并以MODIS光谱波段、植被指数、地表温度及年积日作为预测变量。建模与验证方法细节、估算精度详见Cunill Camprubí等人2022年发表的相关研究论文。

本数据集包含2000年2月至2021年12月的周度LFMC制图集，覆盖地中海盆地的地中海生物群区及部分温带生物群区。文件mapping_area_LFMC-RF_W-1.0.png展示了目标制图区域。

元数据：
光谱信息：MODIS MCD43A4 第六版（C.6）
地表温度：MODIS MOD11A2 第六版（C.6）
土地覆盖掩膜：MODIS MCD12Q1 第六版（C.6）
坐标系：原生MODIS正弦投影
时间分辨率：周度（W）
空间分辨率：约500米
文件格式：NetCDF v.4
缩放因子：0.01

资助说明：
本研究受到西班牙科学与创新部（MICINN，项目编号RTI2018-094691-B-C31）、欧盟地平线2020研究与创新框架计划（资助协议编号101003890，项目名称FirEUrisk）、中国国家自然科学基金（项目编号U20A20179、31850410483）以及西南科技大学四川省人才计划项目（编号2020JDRC0065、18ZX7131）资助。