Open AccessMethod of Estimating Forest Fire Impact on Vegetation
Author(s) -
Iwan Hilwan
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
iop conference series. earth and environmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.179
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1755-1307
pISSN - 1755-1315
DOI - 10.1088/1755-1315/504/1/012004
Subject(s) - vegetation (pathology) , basal area , environmental science , enhanced vegetation index , species diversity , ecology , forestry , geography , physical geography , leaf area index , normalized difference vegetation index , vegetation index , biology , medicine , pathology
The most significant impact of forest fire can be seen on vegetation. Plants usually die instantly due to considerably severe forest fire. Impact of forest fire is difference in terms of values of several vegetation variables in the forest, before fire and those after fire. Therefore, estimation of magnitude of forest fire impact on vegetation was conducted by comparing vegetation condition in burned area with that of unburned area. The higher the level of severity and intensity of the fire, the greater would be the change occurring in the vegetation condition. The occurring change were in the form of among others change in species composition, stand structure, stand density and basal area. For assessing the magnitude of forest fire impact on vegetation, the very important first step is identifying the various vegetation variables which will exhibit value change. After these vegetation variables are known, there are afterwards observation and measurements in the field, and analysis, both in the burned forest area and in the unburned forest area. In the assessment of fire impact, the vegetation components being measured are: (1) change in size of land cover, with variables in the form of stand density, basal area size, number of species and status of species conservation; and (2) change in level of plant species diversity, with variables in the form of species diversity index, community similarity index, and number of species being lost and gained (diversity loss-gain ) . Based on difference in values of the two vegetation components, the magnitude of forest fire impact on vegetation can be classified into five levels, namely very small, small, moderate, large and very large.