FIRE-RES Geo-Catch: a mobile application to support reliable fuel mapping at a pan-European scale

doi:10.3832/ifor4376-016

FIRE-RES Geo-Catch: a mobile application to support reliable fuel mapping at a pan-European scale

Erico Kutchartt⁽¹⁾ , José Ramón González-Olabarria^(2-3), Antoni Trasobares⁽²⁾, Sergio de-Miguel^(3-4), Adrian Cardil⁽⁵⁾, Brigite Botequim^(6-7), Vassil Vassilev⁽⁸⁾, Palaiologos Palaiologou⁽⁹⁾, Martino Rogai⁽¹⁰⁾, Francesco Pirotti^(1-11)

iForest - Biogeosciences and Forestry, Volume 16, Issue 5, Pages 268-273 (2023)
doi: https://doi.org/10.3832/ifor4376-016
Published: Oct 19, 2023 - Copyright © 2023 SISEF

Technical Advances

PDF Version

Full Text

Citation

We present a browser-based App for smartphones that is freely available to end-users for collecting geotagged and oriented photos depicting vegetation biomass and fuel characteristics. Our solution builds on advantages of smartphones, allowing their use as easy sensors to collect data by imaging forest ecosystems. The strength and innovation of the proposed solution is based on the following points: (i) using a low memory footprint App, streaming images and data with as little data-volume and memory as needed; (ii) using JavaScript APIs that can be launched from both a browser or as an installed App, as it applies features such as service workers and Progressive Web App; (iii) storing both image and survey data (geolocation and sensor orientation) internally to the device on an indexed database, and synchronizing the data to a cloud-based server when the smartphone is online and when all other safety tests have been successfully passed. The goal is to achieve properly positioned and oriented photos that can be used as training and testing data for future estimation of the surface fuel types based on automatic segmentation and classification via Machine Learning and Deep Learning.

Keywords

Mobile Data Collection, Citizen Science, Smartphone Position and Orientation, Wildfire, Image Analysis, Progressive Web Apps

Authors’ address

(1)

0000-0002-9134-4591
0000-0002-4796-6406
Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry - TESAF, University of Padova, v. dell’Università 16, 35020 Legnaro, PD (Italy)

(2)

0000-0002-5040-712x
0000-0002-8123-9405
Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia - CTFC, Carretera de Sant Llorenç de Morunys, Km 2, 25280 Solsona (Spain)

(3)

0000-0002-5040-712x
0000-0002-9738-0657
Joint Research Unit CTFC - AGROTECNIO - CERCA, Carretera de Sant Llorenç de Morunys, Km 2, 25280 Solsona (Spain)

(4)

0000-0002-9738-0657
Department of Agricultural and Forest Sciences and Engineering, University of Lleida, 25198 Lleida (Spain)

(5)

0000-0002-0185-3959
Tecnosylva, Parque Tecnológico de León, 24009 León (Spain)

(6)

0000-0002-6661-190x
CoLAB ForestWISE - Collaborative Laboratory for Integrated Forest & Fire Management, Quinta de Prados, 5001-801 Vila Real (Portugal)

(7)

0000-0002-6661-190x
Forest Research Centre, School of Agriculture, University of Lisbon, Tapada de Ajuda, 1349-017 Lisbon (Portugal)

(8)

Space Research and Technology Institute, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, str. “Acad. Georgy Bonchey” bl. 1, 1113 Sofia (Bulgaria)

(9)

0000-0001-8507-5201
Department of Forestry and Natural Environment Management, Agricultural University of Athens, 36100 Karpenisi (Greece)

(10)

Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - CNR, Istituto per la BioEconomia, v. Madonna del Piano 10, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, FI (Italy)

(11)

0000-0002-4796-6406
Interdepartmental Research Center of Geomatics - CIRGEO, University of Padova, v. dell’Università 16, 35020 Legnaro, PD (Italy)

Corresponding author

Erico Kutchartt
erico.kutchartt@unipd.it

Citation

Kutchartt E, González-Olabarria JR, Trasobares A, de-Miguel S, Cardil A, Botequim B, Vassilev V, Palaiologou P, Rogai M, Pirotti F (2023). FIRE-RES Geo-Catch: a mobile application to support reliable fuel mapping at a pan-European scale. iForest 16: 268-273. - doi: 10.3832/ifor4376-016

Academic Editor

Marco Borghetti

Paper history

Received: May 09, 2023
Accepted: Jul 10, 2023

First online: Oct 19, 2023
Publication Date: Oct 31, 2023
Publication Time: 3.37 months

Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Breakdown by View Type

(Waiting for server response...)

Article Usage

Total Article Views: 14137
(from publication date up to now)

Breakdown by View Type
HTML Page Views: 11248
Abstract Page Views: 1856
PDF Downloads: 924
Citation/Reference Downloads: 5
XML Downloads: 104

Web Metrics
Days since publication: 399
Overall contacts: 14137
Avg. contacts per week: 248.02

Article Citations

Article citations are based on data periodically collected from the Clarivate Web of Science web site
(last update: Feb 2023)

(No citations were found up to date. Please come back later)

(no Plumx Metrics available for this paper)

Publication Metrics

by Dimensions ^©

Articles citing this article

List of the papers citing this article based on CrossRef Cited-by.

(1)

Anderson HE (1982)
Aids to determining fuel models for estimating fire behavior. General Technical Report INT-122, USDA Forest Service, Inter-mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Ogden, UT, USA, pp. 22.
Gscholar

(2)

Aragoneses E, García M, Salis M, Ribeiro LM, Chuvieco E (2023)
Classification and mapping of European fuels using a hierarchical, multipurpose fuel classification system. Earth System Science Data 15: 1287-1315.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(3)

Chuvieco E, Pettinari ML, Koutsias N, Forkel M, Hantson S, Turco M (2021)
Human and climate drivers of global biomass burning variability. Science of the Total Environment 779: 146361.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(4)

Dupuy JL, Fargeon H, Martin-StPaul N, Pimont F, Ruffault J, Guijarro M, Hernando C, Madrigal J, Fernandes P (2020)
Climate change impact on future wildfire danger and activity in southern Europe: a review. Annals of Forest Science 77: 35.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(5)

Fernandes PM, Barros AMG, Pinto A, Santos JA (2016)
Characteristics and controls of extremely large wildfires in the western Mediterranean basin. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 121: 2141-2157.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(6)

Ganteaume A, Camia A, Jappiot M, San-Miguel-Ayanz J, Long-Fournel M, Lampin C (2013)
A review of the main driving factors of forest fire ignition over Europe. Enviroment Management 51: 651-662.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(7)

Gollob C, Ritter T, Kraßnitzer R, Tockner A, Nothdurft A (2021)
Measurement of forest inventory parameters with Apple iPad Pro and integrated LiDAR technology. Remote Sensing 13: 3129.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(8)

Keane RE, Burgan R, Van Wagtendonk J (2001)
Mapping wildland fuels for fire management across multiple scales: Integrating remote sensing, GIS, and biophysical modelling. International Journal of Wildland Fire 10: 301-319.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(9)

Keane RE, Dickinson LJ (2007)
The photoload sampling technique: estimating surface fuel loadings from downward-looking photographs of synthetic fuelbeds. General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-190, USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, CO, USA, pp. 44.
Online | Gscholar

(10)

Khabarov N, Krasovskii A, Obersteiner M, Swart R, Dosio A, San-Miguel-Ayanz J, Durrant T, Camia A, Migliavacca M (2016)
Forest fires and adaptation options in Europe. Regional Environmental Change 16: 21-30.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(11)

Kirillov A, Mintun E, Ravi N, Mao H, Rolland C, Gustafson L, Xiao T, Whitehead S, Berg AC, Lo WY, Dollár P, Girshick R (2023)
Segment anything. arXiv preprint.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(12)

Krsnik G, Busquets Olivé E, Piqué Nicolau M, Larrañaga A, Cardil A, García-Gonzalo J, González-Olabarría JR (2020)
Regional level data server for fire hazard evaluation and fuel treatments planning. Forests 12: 4124.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(13)

Mokroš M, Mikita T, Singh A, Tomaštík J, Chudá J, Wezyk P, Kuzelka K, Surovy P, Klimánek M, Zieba-kulawik K, Bobrowski R, Liang X (2021)
Novel low-cost mobile mapping systems for forest inventories as terrestrial laser scanning alternatives. International Journal of Applied Earth Observations and Geoinformation 104: 102512.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(14)

Monedero S, Ramirez J, Cardil A (2019)
Predicting fire spread and behaviour on the fireline. Wildfire analyst pocket: a mobile app for wildland fire prediction. Ecological Modelling 392: 103-107.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(15)

Pirotti F, Piragnolo M, Guarnieri A, Boscaro M, Cavalli R (2022)
Analysis of geospatial behaviour of visitors of urban gardens: is positioning via smartphones a valid solution? In: “Geomatics and Geospatial Technologies” ASITA 2021 (Borgogno-Mondino E, Zamperlin P eds). Communications in Computer and Information Science 10 (1007): 978-3.-030-94426-1_26.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(16)

Rollins MG (2009)
LANDFIRE: a national consistent vegetation, wildland fire, and fuel assessment. International Journal of Wildland Fire 18: 235-249.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(17)

San Miguel-Ayanz J, Durrant T, Boca R, Maianti P, Libertá G, Oom D, Branco A, De Rigo D, Ferrari D, Roglia E, Scionti N (2023)
Advance report on forest fires in Europe, Middle East and North Africa 2022. JRC Technical Report, Joint Research Centre (European Commission), Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg. pp. 47.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(18)

Scott JH, Burgan R (2005)
Standard fire behavior fuel models: A comprehensive set for use with Rothermel’s surface fire spread model. General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-153, USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, CO, USA, pp. 72.
Online | Gscholar

(19)

Tatsumi S, Yamaguchi K, Furuya N (2022)
ForestScanner: a mobile application for measuring and mapping trees with LiDAR-equipped iPhone and iPad. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 00: 1-7.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(20)

Tinkham WT, Hoffman CM, Canfield JM, Vakili E, Reich RM (2016)
Using the photoload technique with double sampling to improve surface fuel loading estimates. International Journal of Wildland Fire 25: 224-228.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(21)

Xanthopoulos G, Caballero D, Galante M, Alexandrian D, Rigolot E, Marzano R (2006)
Forest fuel management in Europe. Proceedings RMRS-P-41, USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, CO, USA, pp. 29.
Gscholar

iForest - Biogeosciences and Forestry

Contents

Search

Journal Info

Journal Subjects and Fields

For Authors

For Reviewers

For Readers

SISEF Publishing

Search iForest Contents