Christopher Cole is a Geospatial Analyst with Parallel, Incorporated, at the
USGS Rocky Mountain Geographic Science Center (RMGSC). He has employed remotely
sensed imagery for the object-oriented mapping of vegetation and landcover in
Colorado, Texas, and Wyoming.
Abstract:
As wildfires continue to put pressure on planning and mitigation efforts at federal, state and local levels, the ability to derive accurate fire fuels information, and to model fire behavior and associated risks becomes increasingly important. The USGS Rocky Mountain Geographic Science Center (RMGSC) is employing remotely sensed imagery to develop advanced image classification techniques, which will be used to support fire fuels landcover inventory and behavior modeling within Grand County. The RMGSC’s approach rests on a hybrid pixel/object-oriented, supervised classification of medium to high-resolution imagery. These image classification techniques will support the generation of a finer resolution and more temporally current landscape inventory with fire fuels/behavior information than existing data layers. Subsequent data will be used to feed into established fire fuel models, in order to facilitate timely and accurate risk assessment by federal, state, and local officials. Combined, these efforts can provide valuable inputs to enable effective decision making regarding fire hazards, risk and fuel treatments and related mitigation measures.