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Degree

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, Geography (Arts and Sciences), 2009.

Abstract

This study explores the environmental control of two key elements of water balance on fire behavior at two sites in southeastern Ohio, Arch Rock and Tar Hollow. The two elements of water balance are potential evapotranspiration (PET) and actual evapotranspiration (AET). Fire behavior is expressed in this study as fire radiative energy (FRE), which is estimated from time-sequence fire radiative power by remote sensing of infrared radiation during fires. Previous studies have shown that both fuel moisture and fuel load are primary driving forces of fire behavior at a coarse scale. Therefore, in this study, PET is used to suggest fuel moisture in spring and AET is used as a surrogate for productivity during the growing season in order to explain FRE at a fine scale. Results show that a water balance approach helped to explain FRE using categorical AET and PET. At the pixel level, the water balance approach was less successful because the variables did not relate reasonably with space and because of other fine-scale local effects (hydrology, decomposition rates) that were not captured by PET and AET. Aspect strongly influences solar radiation and PET. Thus, aspect was used additionally to assess its indirect effects on FRE. Overall, FRE responded well to aspect at both study sites.

Subject Headings

Ecology; Environmental science; Geography; Remote sensing

Keywords

prescribed-fires; time-sequence infrared imagery; fire radiative energy; water balance; microclimate; topography

Advisor

James M. Dyer, PhD (Advisor)

Pages

82p.

Document number: ohiou1251136822
Permalink: http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1251136822

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