Monitoring forest regrowth with different burn severity using aerial and Landsat data

The aim of this study is to monitor the post-fire forest recovery with different burn severity. The test area is located in southeastern Bulgaria, Haskovo region, where a significant fire took place in the summer of 2007. The recovery processes of the study area were examined for the period 2007-2014. To achieve this goal, NDVI, dNDVI, NBR, and dNBR were generated once every year during the study period. Satellite images from Landsat 5 (TM), Landsat 7 (ETM+), and Landsat 8 (OLI) were used. We calculated the average NDVI and NBR values for the test forest areas with high burn severity. Scatter diagrams of NBR and NDVI were generated and the correlation coefficient between NBR and NDVI was calculated. The approach and the results were validated on the basis of high-resolution aerial images taken before the fire and in the end of the study period.