International Conference on forest fires at the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania

New trends in forest fire research incorporating big data and climate change modelling

The 11th Forest Fire Special Interest Group Workshop of the European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories -EARSeL, was held on 25-27 September 2017 at the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania (MAICh). The conference was co-organized by the Laboratory of Forest Management and Remote Sensing of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, MAICh and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), with the support of the European Space Agency (ESA).

The thematic sessions of the conference included, among other, the impact of climate change on forest fires, contribution of the recent ESA’s Sentinel missions on forest fire research and exploitation of Big Data and dense satellite time-series data for monitoring of forest fire disturbance.

The conference was attended by 60 researchers from Europe, USA, Canada, Russia, China, Australia and Lebanon. There were 43 papers and presentations were given by invited speakers from ESA, the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, NASA and the University of South Dakota.

Among the participants were researchers with long experience in the use of remote sensing for forest fire monitoring, and who are members of advisory committees responsible for defining policies of large organizations such as ESA, NASA and the Canadian Space Agency. Discussions during the conference focused on identifying synergies and possible collaborations of satellite missions of these organisations, as well as the present and future needs on satellite data, in order to determine the characteristics of future missions accordingly. The overall aim of these conferences is to update research achievements and develop methodologies using satellite data to produce imagery products that can be exploited by public bodies for the detection and monitoring of forest fires and burned areas.

Within the framework of the conference, a field trip to Samaria Gorge was held, with the support of the Chania Directorate of Forests.

Source: https://dasarxeio.com