Content/concepts goals
Students should be able to download satellite images from the USGS website, process the images for analysis, create burn scar images, and calculate the normalized burn ratio (NBR) for pre and post-fire images to analyze the extent of the 2018 Camp Fire in Butte County, California.

Higher order thinking skills goals
Students should be able to connect skills learned in a mapping program to wildfire and satellite imagery analysis in general. These skills are transferable and have real-world applications.

Other skills goals
Students should be able to understand the importance of remote sensing for data collection in the field of Earth System Science.

Type and level of course
This activity was originally designed for use as a lab/homework assignment in an introductory ArcGIS course for Earth System Science majors (mainly upper-division students). Students completing this exercise typically have some introductory knowledge of the ArcGIS Pro program and are expected to have basic knowledge of computer functions (Ex: organizing and maneuvering directories, using copy and paste, taking screenshots, etc.). This exercise is designed to practice/reinforce working with satellite imagery including skills such as pre-processing satellite images, downloading imagery from public access websites, performing various types of raster analysis, and creating features and feature layers. This activity works best for reinforcing skills learned in the Arc interface with an emphasis on students who are looking for ways in which ArcGIS can be applicable to the field of Earth System Science. This particular activity, which utilizes imagery from 2018 and 2019 before and after the November 2018 Camp Fire in Butte County, California, can be modified to analyze any other US wildfire using freely available satellite imagery. This imagery can be found through the Landsat data available on the USGS earth explorer website.

Skills and concepts students should have mastered
Prior to completing this activity, students should have acquired basic knowledge of ArcGIS Pro mapping. In addition, students should have some familiarity with the fundamentals of remote sensing and how composite band images can highlight different features in satellite imagery. While students can be beginner mapping students, some prior knowledge of the program and its language are necessary to complete this activity. For students that are not familiar with the spatial analyst and editing toolboxes, this activity should follow a tutorial on how to complete the necessary skills to complete the activity.

How the activity is situated in the course
As originally designed, this activity is a post-lab homework assignment in which students must reinforce concepts learned in lecture/lab. The activity is a standalone assignment designed to pull together many skills learned in a GIS course and often occurs in week 7 of a 10-week introductory course. Students are given a background lecture on creating polygons and raster calculations/analysis, and the usefulness of this skill is demonstrated.

This activity should be done independently and could take anywhere from 2-4 hours to complete, depending on student skill level and speed.

Students are first asked to create a layer for Butte County in order to determine if the downloaded rasters will cover the affected area. They then are directed to download the GeoTIFF files of the bands that are required to create burn scar images. They must then work through the lab, creating maps displaying the burn scars and calculating the NBR for the pre and post-fire images.

When completed, students should ultimately utilize these layers to digitize the burnt area and create a feature layer to be able to refer to the burnt area from this wildfire in the future. To make the analysis more advanced, students can analyze a longer time-scale utilizing the additional images from the USGS Earth Explorer website to visualize the rate of forest regeneration. If students are more advanced, they can also practice searching for and downloading data on additional variables such as albedo, land surface temperature, or some other variable that can analyze the effects of wildfires and forest loss on a local region.

Advanced Student Lab Worksheet: BurnScarLab_AdvancedFinal.pdf (Acrobat (PDF) 106kB Nov28 23)

Beginner Student Lab Worksheet: BurnScarLab_BeginnersFinal.pdf (Acrobat (PDF) 109kB Nov28 23)

ArcGIS Pro Project File: Projects.zip (Zip Archive 809.2MB Nov28 23)

ArcGIS Pro Student Data File: Data.zip (Zip Archive 2.8MB Nov28 23)

This activity is meant to highlight skills in working with and analyzing raster data, rather than accurately depict the process of utilizing remote sensing data to identify burned areas following a wildfire. Students are meant to draw parallels between skills learned in a mapping course and their relationship to real-world applications.

The Teaching Key can be found here:

TeacherKey.pdf -- private instructor-only file

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Note that the majority of the tutorial has detailed step-by-step instructions; however, should you require additional instructions for your students, please contact Carisa De Santos (carisad@uci.edu), who designed this as a part of her senior thesis in Earth System Science.

Throughout this exercise, students are expected to answer questions and collect screenshots of their progress. In addition, a final assessment to determine whether their raster analysis and polygon editing skills have been improved can be based on the final feature layer provided by the student and the burnt area that they have determined based on the NBR and burn scar raster layers. Numbers may vary by student, but should generally be within a 10% range of one another. An analysis of what may account for such wide variation in these numbers would be a good way to think about satellite imagery enhancement, composite band image creation, and the limitations of polygons in analysis.

All data and information about the data originate from the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Additional information about the 2018 Camp Fire and burn scar imagery originates from CalFire and existing ArcGIS fire imagery tutorials.

Links:
Remembering the Camp Fire | CAL FIRE
Landsat 8 | U.S. Geological Survey (usgs.gov)
Landsat 8 (L8) Data Users Handbook (amazonaws.com)
Landsat 8 Bands | Landsat Science (nasa.gov)
EarthExplorer (usgs.gov)
Assess burn scars with satellite imagery | Learn ArcGIS
CA Geographic Boundaries - CA County Boundaries - California Open Data