ANALYSIS OF RESPONSE AND RECOVERY OF VEGETATION TO FOREST FIRE

Abstract. To analyse the response and recovery characteristics of forest to forest fire, this paper selected the forest fire in the Greater Khingan Mountains (GKM) in China in 1987 and the forest fire in the Yellowstone National Park (YSP) in the United States in 1988. We first used Landsat-5 TM images before and after the fire to extract the burned area and calculate burn severity based on the Differential Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR). Next, we analysed the response of forest vegetation to forest fire with different burn severity using the anomaly value of Leaf area index (LAI) derived from Global Land Surface Satellite (GLASS) products. And the recovery of forest vegetation after forest fire were revealed using time – series LAI data and MODIS Land cover data. The results showed that the LAI decreased rapidly after the forest fire, and the greater the burn severity, the higher the decreasing amplitude of LAI. The maximum decreasing amplitude of LAI in the burned areas with high burn severity were 1.3–3.8 times higher than that in low burn severity areas. The recovery time of LAI is affected by burn severity and manual interference. The recovery time of LAI in burned areas in the GKM is about 5–10 years, which in the burned areas with high burn severity is 2 times than that with low burn severity. The recovery time of LAI in the burned areas with low burn severity in the YSP is at least 20 years, while that with high burn severity will take longer time to recovery. And the manual interference accelerated the recovery of LAI in the GKM. Our research on the response and recovery of vegetation is helpful for formulating and implementing adaptation and mitigation strategies in response to forest fire.