Comparison of vegetation regeneration after wildfire between Mediterranean and tundra ecosystems by using Landsat images

ABSTRACT

Wildfires are a major natural hazard with tremendous implications for the Earth’s ecosystems. Investigating fire regimes and fire–vegetation dynamics using remote-sensing techniques is becoming increasingly common because of their large-scale coverage and data availability. However, there is still scarce study to compare vegetation regeneration between different ecosystems after wildfires due to lack of data. This study used time series of Landsat images to explore and compare post-fire vegetation recovery in a Mediterranean (Witch Creek Fire) and tundra (Anaktuvuk River Fire) ecosystem. After 8 years of disturbance, the vegetation in the Mediterranean ecosystem had still not yet recovered, whereas the tundra ecosystem recovered in just 3 years. Higher degree burning leads to quicker vegetation recovery rate. However, ecological retrogression was also detected. Spatial heterogeneity in post-fire vegetation recovery observed in both sites can be attributed to topographic factors, soil water availability and the thermokarst process.

KEYWORDS:

• Wildfire
• vegetation regeneration
• fire ecology
• Witch Creek Fire
• Anaktuvuk River Fire

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.