TUgis Conference 2019

Wildfire is a destructive event that has potential to occur in any region where forests exist. A natural and balanced regeneration of vegetation is paramount to forest and animal health after a wildfire is extinguished. Monitoring and understanding regeneration patterns can aid environmental professionals in promoting healthy forest regeneration. This presentation focuses on post wildfire vegetation regeneration in Glacier National Park. Multiple fire perimeters from the 2003 fire season are used to identify and map the perimeters using multispectral imagery. Cheat grass, an invasive species, and western larch, a pioneer species are identified, mapped, and analyzed using remote sensing techniques. An Object-Based Image Analysis classification workflow is presented to demonstrate how species are identified and classified. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), and Normalized Burn Ration (NBR) indices are utilized to identify burn areas and new vegetation growth. The results reveal regeneration behaviors of the vegetation species and how they relate to overall patterns of burning and other environmental factors. The results will show that western larch thrived in the post wildfire regeneration period by out-competing other species to occupy larger amounts of land than previously occupied. Not much competition was found between the species as cheat grass was found to occupy steeper south facing slopes while western larch was found on flatter slopes. Western larch was found to correlate strongly with moderate burns while cheat grass is found in more severely burned areas.