Live Fuel Moisture Content Mapping in the Mediterranean Basin Using Random Forests and Combining MODIS Spectral and Thermal Data

Live fuel moisture content (LFMC), defined as the mass of water in the foliage and small twigs relative to its total dry mass, is a key factor affecting fire potential and determining wildfire danger and activity. Fuel moisture is directly related to the amount of energy needed to evaporate water before ignition. Consequently, high moisture values reduce, or even inhibit, ignitability and subsequent fire spread.

To cover the absence of a specific model to estimate LFMC for the Mediterranean Basin at the sub-continental scale, we built an empirical model based on Random Forests (LFMC_RF) and combining MODIS spectral bands, vegetation indices, land surface temperature, and the day of year as predictors. The details on the modeling and validation methods, and the accuracy of the estimates are in the related publication Cunill Camprubí et al., 2022.

This dataset contains a collection of weekly LFMC maps from February 2000 to December 2021. The maps cover the Mediterranean and part of the Temperate biomes of the Mediterranean Basin. File mapping_area_LFMC-RF_W-1.0.png shows the target mapping areas.

Metadata:

• Spectral Information: MODIS MCD43A4 C.6
• Land Surface Temperature: MODIS MOD11A2 C.6
• Land Cover Mask: MODIS MCD12Q1 C.6
• Coordinate Reference System: Native MODIS Sinusoidal
• Temporal Resolution: Weekly (W)
• Spatial Resolution: ~500 m
• File Format: NetCDF v.4
• Scale Factor: 0.01

Fundings:

The study was funded by the MICINN (RTI2018-094691-B-C31), European Union’s Horizon 2020-Research and Innovation Framework Programme under grant agreement no. 101003890 project FirEUrisk, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U20A20179, 31850410483), and the talent proposals in Sichuan Province (2020JDRC0065) from Southwest University of Science and Technology (18ZX7131).