TITLE:
Vegetation regrowth trends in post forest fire ecosystems across North America from 2000 to 2010
AUTHORS:
Shuang Li, Christopher Potter
KEYWORDS:
MODIS EVI; Post-Fire Forest; Regrowth; Climate Change; North America
JOURNAL NAME:
Natural Science,
Vol.4 No.10,
October
31,
2012
ABSTRACT: The goal of this study was to determine whether climate has affected vegetation regrowth over the past decade (2000 to 2010) in post-fire forest ecosystems of the United States and Canada. Our methodology detected trends in the monthly MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) timeseries within forest areas that burned between 1984 and 1999. The trends in summed growing season EVI (composited to 8 km spatial resolution) within all burned area perimeters showed that nearly 1.6% post-fire forest area declined in vegetation greenness cover significantly (p