The use of sentinel-2 satellite data for burn severity mapping for arakapas fire event in cyprus

This study focused on burned area mapping and burn severity estimation for the Arakapas fire event in Cyprus. For the purpose of the study Sentinel-2 images, before and after the fire event were used for the development of the dNBR and the RdNBR spectral indices, which are the most common spectral indices for assessing the burn severity and burned area estimation. For the validation of the fire severity map, field data were collected for the CBI and GeoCBI index calculation. The fire severity maps were compared with the field measurements of the CBI and GeoCBI. Based on Pearson Correlation the RdNBR map has a very high correlation with GeoCBI (PC=83%) and high correlation with CBI (PC=71%) in contrast with the dNBR spectral index which has a moderate correlation (PC=59% and PC=54%) with CBI and GeoCBI respectively. Based on these results the RdNBR spectral index is better for the burned severity mapping.