Environmental Monitoring Supported by Aerial Photography – a Case Study of the Burnt Down Bugac Juniper Forest, Hungary

Abstract

Wildfire poses a serious risk in several regions of the world threatening urban, agricultural areas and natural ecosystems as well. Nature conservation has important role to be prepared for the management of postfire environmental degradation and restoration for protected areas preserving valuable ecosystems. The improving temporal and spatial resolution of remote sensing and GIS methods significantly contributes to map the changes for accelerating management steps of restoration. In this study a severe wildfire and its impacts were assessed in case of a protected area of the Kiskunság National Park in Hungary, which was partly burnt down in 2012. The aim of this research was to efficiently and accurately assess the damages and to plan and execute the restoration works using remote sensing tools. Aerial data collection was performed one month, and one year after the fire. In 2014 the regenerated vegetation was surveyed and mapped in the field. Using the aerial photographs and the field data, the degree and extent of the fire damages, the types and the state of the vegetation and the presence and proportion of the invasive species were determined. Semi-automatic methods were used for the classification of completely, partially damaged and undamaged areas. Based on the results, the reforestation of the burnt area is suggested to prevent the overspreading of white poplar against common junipers and to clean the area from the most frequent invasive species. To monitor the regeneration of the vegetation and the spreading of the invasive species, further aerial photography and field campaigns are planned.

The visualization of the spatiality of Airbnb in Budapest using 3-band raster representation

“…Our study is based on a mapping method, which is decisively utilized in physical geography (Aghayev & Rustamov, 2015;Szatmári et al, 2016), but there were attempts to model internal structure of Hungarian towns (Gyenizse et al, 2016). In our study, 3 different indicators will be represented on a single map at the same time using GIS.…”

Current Wildland Fire Patterns and Challenges in Europe: A Synthesis of National Perspectives

“…There is no natural fire regime in Hungary, but fires affect approximately 0.01% of the area of the country per year. In lowland coniferous plantations, fire damage can be significant (Szatmári et al, 2016). Human-induced fire, which is generally ignited unintendedly, is the major cause of wildland fires.…”

“…Studies on wildland fires in Hungary evaluated fire risk in black pine plantations (Csontos & Cseresnyes, 2007;Szatmári et al, 2016), and the regeneration of dolomite rocky grasslands after wildland fire in pine plantations (Tamas & Csontos, 2006). According to Szatmári et al (2016), wildland fire in lowland contributes considerably to the spreading of invasive plant species. The majority of the studies on the fire effects on Hungarian ecosystems focus on open habitats (Kertész et al, 2017;Ónodi et al, 2008;Valkó et al, 2016Valkó et al, , 2018.…”

Disturbance reshapes the productivity–diversity relationship

“…While the historical fire regime is unknown and the majority of the recent wildfires were human-induced (Cseresnyés & Tamás, 2014), extreme events such as drought and wildfires are predicted to become more frequent in the future in Hungary (Bartholy et al, 2009). Apparently meeting the latter prediction, the Bugac Nature Reserve was burnt in April 2012 in a severe wildfire (Szatmári et al, 2016). More details of the Bugac site can be found in the article that describes vegetation dynamics before the 2012 wildfire (Ónodi et al, 2014).…”