Lorenzo Fusilli

Remote sensing water observation for supporting Lake Victoria weed management.

This paper aims to assess the suitability of remote sensing for enhancing the management of water body resources and for providing an inexpensive way to gather, on a wide area, weed infestation extent and optical parameter linked to the water body status. Remotely sensed satellite images and ancillary ground true data were used to produce land cover maps, trough classification techniques, and water compounds maps, applying radiative transfer models. The study proposed within the framework of the cooperation between Italian Foreign Affair Ministry (through the University of Rome) and Kenyan Authorities has been carried out on the Kenyan part of the Lake Victoria. This lake is one of the largest freshwater bodies of the world where, over the last few years environmental challenges and human impact have perturbed the ecological balance affecting the biodiversity. The objective of this research study is to define the thematic products, retrievable from satellite images, like weed abundance maps and water compound concentrations. These products, if provided with an appropriate time frequency, are useful to identify the preconditions for the occurrence of hazard events like abnormal macrophyte proliferation and to develop an up-to-date decision support system devoted to an apprised territory, environment and resource management.

Assessment of the abnormal growth of floating macrophytes in Winam Gulf (Kenya) by using MODIS imagery time series

Abstract The objective of this research study is to assess the capability of time-series of MODIS imagery to provide information suitable for enhancing the understanding of the temporal cycles shown by the abnormal growth of the floating macrophytes in order to support monitoring and management action of Lake Victoria water resources. The proliferation of invasive plants and aquatic weeds is of growing concern. Starting from 1989, Lake Victoria has been interested by the high infestation of water hyacinth with significant socio-economic impact on riparian populations. In this paper, we describe an approach based on the time-series of MODIS to derive the temporal behaviour, the abundance and distribution of the floating macrophytes in the Winam Gulf (Kenyan portion of the Lake Victoria) and its possible links to the concentrations of the main water constituencies. To this end, we consider the NDVI values computed from the MODIS imagery time-series from 2000 to 2009 to identify the floating macrophytes cover and an appropriate bio-optical model to retrieve, by means of an inverse procedure, the concentrations of chlorophyll a, coloured dissolved organic matter and total suspended solid. The maps of the floating vegetation based on the NDVI values allow us to assess the spatial and temporal dynamics of the weeds with high time resolution. A floating vegetation index (FVI) has been introduced for describing the weeds pollution level. The results of the analysis show a consistent temporal relation between the water constituent concentrations within the Winam Gulf and the FVI, especially in the proximity of the greatest proliferation of floating vegetation in the last 10 years that occurred between the second half of 2006 and the first half of 2007.The adopted approach will be useful to implement an automatic system for monitoring and predicting the floating macrophytes proliferation in Lake Victoria.

SIGRI Project: Products Validation Results

The pilot project SIGRI (Sistema Integrato per la Gestione del Rischio Incendi) of the Italian Space Agency aims at developing an integrated system for the management of wildfires. The system provides satellite-based products capable of assisting in all phases of fire combat activities: forecast, detection, damage assessment, and recovery. The SIGRI goals were achieved by implementing consolidated methodologies, and/or developing innovative tools and methods for the automated analysis of multispectral, Synthetic Aperture Radar, and non-EO data. This paper focuses on the testing and validation of algorithms developed during the final phase of SIGRI. The validation of the products generated is an important phase in which their potential is assessed, and algorithms are calibrated. We discuss the results of the validation process of the main chain of unsupervised products: Modified Fire Probability Index by multispectral moderate resolution data (prevention), early detection of fire Hot Spots by multispectral very-high temporal resolution data (response), and identification and mapping of Burn Scars (damage assessment) by high-spatial resolution electro-optical and Synthetic Aperture Radar data.

The PREFER FP7 project: Damage severity maps validation results

PREFER is one of the Copernicus FP7 Emergency projects funded in 2012. It is uniquely devoted to forest pre-and post-fire management. The overall goal of the project is to develop and demonstrate a pre-operational portfolio of products, based on Earth Observation data for helping fires management at Mediterranean scale. Samples of the PREFER (Space-based Information Support for Prevention and REcovery of Forest Fires Emergency in the MediteRranean Area) information products are available to stakeholders through the project Geoserver (prefer.cgspace.it). The project foresees the utilization of satellite images optical and SAR at low (MODIS), medium (Landsat, Spot) and high (Kompsat, RapidEye, Pleiades, Cosmo-SkyMed, TanDEM-X, etc.) spatial resolution and a refresh rate of the products varying from high (days) to low (twice a month) to very low (once a year). The present paper is devoted to introduce the methodology developed for computing the maps of the level of damage caused in vegetated areas by fires and to present the results of the validation process just started.

Sugarcane biomass estimate based on sar imagery: A radar systems comparison

SBAM (Satellite Based Agricultural Monitoring) is a project funded by Italian Space Agency in the framework of Italian-Kenya cooperation. The project has four main objectives: a) to produce an updated map of the agricultural areas for Kenya based on Landsat 8 and Sentinel 2 imagery; b) to develop an automatic monitoring system able to classify agricultural areas and detect land use changes; c) to develop and deliver to the Kenyan partner of the project a system capable to download and process automatically Landsat8, Sentinel2, MODIS and MSG/SEVIRI images by providing standard products (vegetation indices, statistics, temporal analysis, etc.); d) to provide a tool for assessing changes in the agricultural area stability and crop yield. and study the feasibility of a tool capable to forecast crop yields. The paper is devoted to describe the activity carried out in the field of forecasting crop yield by using biomass estimate based on SAR images. The results obtained by using images acquired by X-band (Cosmo-Skymed), C-Band (Sentinel-1) and L-band (PALSAR) systems on a study area devoted to sugarcane will be described.

Achievements of the PREFER project in the prevention phase of the forest fire management

The three years FP7 project PREFER (Space-based information support for the Prevention and Recovery of Forest Fires Emergency in the Mediterranean Area) devoted to develop a satellite based service infrastructure capable to provide up-to-date information to support the preparedness, prevention, recovery and reconstruction phases of the Forest Fires emergency cycle in the European Mediterranean Region, has been successfully completed at the end of 2015. However, the project consortium will make available its products for the 2016 summer season, too. The present paper aims at presenting the project achievements emphasizing the most innovative information products developed in the framework of the project. For such products the methodology, validation and demonstration results will be presented and discussed.

Satellite based products for supporting forest fires prevention and recovery in Europe

The main purpose of the FP7 PREFER project is to set up a space-based service infrastructure and up-to-date cartographic products, based on remote sensing data, to support the preparedness, prevention, recovery and reconstruction phases of the Forest Fires emergency cycle in the European Mediterranean Region. This region is particularly affected by uncontrolled forest fires, with negative consequences on ecosystems, such as desertification and soil erosion, as well as on the local economy and, in extreme situations, causing also the loss of human lives. The present paper aims at illustrating the potential improvement in the forest fires fighting that may result from the use of information obtained by exploiting satellite imagery. The potentiality of satellite based information products will be demonstrated by reporting the results of the demonstration activity carried out during the 2015 summer season.

Are the PREFER project products devoted to support fire prevention and recovery suitable to South-America?

PREFER (Space-based information support for the Prevention and Recovery of Forest Fires Emergency in the Mediterranean Area) is a three years project devoted to develop a satellite based service infrastructure capable to provide up-to-date information to support the preparedness, prevention, recovery and reconstruction phases of the Forest Fires emergency cycle in the European Mediterranean Region. The project has been successfully completed at the end of 2015. This paper aims at illustrating some of the project achievements and discuss their applicability to manage forest fires in South-America.

Satellite-based products for forest fire prevention and recovery: the PREFER experience

PREFER is a three years projects funded in 2012 in the framework of the FP7 Emergency call. The project objective was to set up a space-based service infrastructure and up-to-date cartographic products, based on remote sensing data, to support the preparedness, prevention, recovery and reconstruction phases of the Forest Fires emergency cycle in the European Mediterranean Region. The products of PREFER were tested and evaluated during the training and the demonstration period of the project, which coincided with the forest fire season of 2015. The products were tested using the online PREFER service and the tests were linked to the pilot areas of the project which are Minho (Portugal), Messenia (Greece), Andalucía (Spain), Sardinia (Italy) and Corse (France). Testing was performed by members of the User Advisory Board (UAB) starting from the training event organized in Coimbra, Portugal in June 2015. The tests continued till the end of the fire season (October 2015) and the end users were provided with updated information for the areas of interest during the entire demonstration period. Due to data availability restrictions (in particular to ancillary required data) not all products were available for testing in all the test areas. However all the PREFER products were tested at least in one pilot area and in cooperation with at least one end user organization. It has to be mentioned that beyond the product suitability and usefulness to the end users the tests included evaluation of the usability of the web-based service of PREFER and the respective quality of service provided. This paper aims at presenting the results of the demonstration activity, the lessons learned and ideas for further enhancement of the developed products devoted to support prevention and recovery phases of the wildfire cycle.

SIGRI project: Results of the products validation process

The SIGRI (Sistema Integrato per la Gestione del Rischio Incendi) pilot project, funded by ASI (the Italian Space Agency), aims at developing an integrated system for the management of the wild fire events. The system provides satellite based products capable of assisting all the phases of the fire contrasting activities: prevision, detection, and damage assessment/recovering. The SIGRI project aims at implementing consolidated methodologies and/or developing innovative tools and methods for the analysis of remote sensing data and the extraction of information useful to the application. This paper concerns the final phase of the SIGRI project: test and validation of algorithms developed. The validation of the generated products is a very important phase through which the products potentiality is assessed and the algorithms can be calibrated. In this paper we will discuss the results of a preliminary validation process.