Spatial Assessment of Wildfires Susceptibility in Santa Cruz (Bolivia) Using Random Forest

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Version: Final published version
License: CC BY 4.0
Serval ID
serval:BIB_DCA7FC133F80
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Spatial Assessment of Wildfires Susceptibility in Santa Cruz (Bolivia) Using Random Forest
Journal
Geosciences
Author(s)
Bustillo Sánchez Marcela, Tonini Marj, Mapelli Anna, Fiorucci Paolo
ISSN
2076-3263
Publication state
Published
Issued date
20/05/2021
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
11
Number
5
Pages
224
Language
english
Abstract
Wildfires are expected to increase in the near future, mainly because of climate changes and land use management. One of the most vulnerable areas in the world is the forest in central-South America, including Bolivia. Despite that this country is highly prone to wildfires, literature is rather limited here. To fill this gap, we implemented a dataset including the burned area that occurred in the department of Santa Cruz in the period of 2010–2019, and the digital spatial data describing the predisposing factors (i.e., topography, land cover, ecoregions). The main goal was to develop a model, based on Random Forest, in which probabilistic outputs allowed to elaborate wildfires susceptibility maps. The overall accuracy was finally estimated by using 5-fold cross-validation. In addition, the last three years of observations acted as the testing dataset, allowing to evaluate the predictive performance of the model. The quantitative assessment of the variables revealed that “flooded savanna” and “shrub or herbaceous cover, flooded, fresh/saline/brakish water” are respectively the ecoregions and land cover classes with the highest probability of predicting wildfires. This study contributes to the development and validation of an innovative mapping tool for fire risk assessment, implementable at a regional scale in different areas of the globe.
Keywords
wildfires mapping, Bolivia, machine learning, model validation, land use, ecoregions, slash-and-burn
Open Access
Yes
Create date
04/06/2021 14:46
Last modification date
11/01/2023 6:52
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