INUE INteractive and Userfriendly Emergency tool for postfire erosion susceptibility mapping

INUE is a standalone, Python-based GIS software designed to collect, simplify, and integrate existing methodologies for burned areas, enabling fast post-fire erosion susceptibility mapping. INUE is designed to be used in the emergency phase, when few data is available, for a first assessment of the areas able to furnish sediment for PWDF. You must NOT USE INUE if you are looking for Sediment Yields, Sediment Fluxes and Exact Physical Predictions: INUE is not intended for these purposes. INUE is an empirical screening tool for relative susceptibility, not a high-precision physical or hydrological model.  If your objectives require physical precision, please discontinue use and refer to the specific models.

By combining widely used indices and spectral analyses, INUE allows the calculation of:

>>> Index of Connectivity (IC; Borselli et al., 2008)

>>> Pre- and post-fire Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) and dNBR

>>> Burn severity maps

>>> Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)

>>> Custom erosion susceptibility maps

>>> Quick DoIC maps for burned areas  (sensu Martini, Faes, Picco et al. 2020) obtained with a simplified procedure [HS1 scenario]. Please note that a detailed and accurate DoIC map (as proposed by Martini et al. 2020) requires a more detailed and accurate procedure which is not performed by INUE.

Thanks to its modular design, INUE can also function as a standalone calculator for the Index of Connectivity (IC; Borselli et al., 2008), making it flexible for both research and emergency response applications. The default W impedance factor provided is the RI roughness index (Cavalli et al., 2008), but users can also opt to use a custom W factor. Additionally, INUE allows consideration of the effects of road networks, following the original framework developed by Borselli et al. (2008). This is made possible through the DEMROAD Crafter tool, which serves as a road mask implementation for TauDEM. Also in the case of DEMROAD, the user can choose whether or not to use it. At this moment the use of DEMROAD is effective with DEM having a resolution of 2 meters or higher.

INUE is based on SUBSTR8. SUBSTR8 is made up of 5 Python (3.13) modules useful for the creation of Spatial Analysis tools. SUBSTR8 integrates functions supporting multithreading and dynamic chunking for the efficent use of hardware resources.

 The software was developed and tested on a Lenovo IdeaPad 330‑15AST laptop equipped with an AMD A9 dual-core 3.1 GHz processor, 8 GB DDR4 RAM (6.9 GB available), integrated Radeon R5 graphics, and 250 GB SSD storage, running Windows 11 Home 64-bit.

>>> IC calculation alone for a 400 km² area at 10 m resolution (4 million cells, float32) takes about 5 minutes

>>> Complete post-fire analysis (all indices and susceptibility maps) takes approximately 15 minutes

It was developed in the framework of a PhD thesis financed by CNR-IRPI and University of Cagliari. 

INUE is ideal for:

>>> Researchers looking for a tool for IC calculation 

>>> Field technicians and emergency managers needing rapid tools for burned area erosion susceptiblity assessment

INUE is the software for you if:

• Rapid Prioritization → You need to quickly identify (even approximately!) which watersheds or slopes are most at risk and prioritize areas for field surveys and the specific procedures required.
• Emergency Phase Mapping → You need to produce erosion susceptibility map immediately after a fire, using mostly remotely sensed data.
• Screening with Limited Data → You have very little time and only the few basic datasets usually available during an emergency.
• Modeling Connectivity Spikes → You want to account for how burn severity and vegetation loss dramatically increase the likelihood of sediment reaching the river network.
• Considering Landforms & Recovery → You need a fast way to include the mitigating effects of terraces, roads, or new vegetation regrowth in your assessment.

INUE uses TauDEM v5.3.7 or higher for the Hydrological operations. Download it from here: https://hydrology.usu.edu/taudem/taudem5/downloads.html

OS: Windows

Find the Code here: https://github.com/constantineshovel