Tutorial 2: Burnt Area Extraction using Sentinel-2 data on UP42 Platform

The year 2019 witnessed a record number of fire events. The California fires in the US, the Bandipur fire in India, the Amazon fires and recently the fires in Australia are a few among the many that wreaked havoc and caused huge loss of infrastructure and vegetation. Optical satellites play a vital role in precisely detecting t and monitoring such time-critical events. The team at Vasundharaa Geo Technologies have developed an algorithm to map the extent of burnt region, “Burnt Area Extraction” that is hosted on our partner platform UP42.

The objective of this tutorial is to provide users with step-by-step instructions in analyzing the burnt area using Sentinel-2 optical imagery on the UP42 platform. In this tutorial, we study the California Fire that occurred in November 2019.

Data and Processing Blocks

For this tutorial we will use Sentinel-2 Level 2 (BOA) AOI clipped data block available on the platform and the “Burnt Area Extraction” processing block developed by Vasundharaa Geo Technologies.

Note: It is required to create an account on the UP42 platform for which each user gets 10000 free credits.

Create a Project

Click on the “Start Project” to begin a new project. Input the name and project description and click on “Save”.

Figure 1: Create project

Create a Workflow

Next, we have to create a workflow to do the analysis. To do this select the project and click on “Create Workflow”.

Figure 2: Create a workflow

Add Blocks for Data and Processing

Once the necessary information in the workflow is added, the next step we have to add the data and processing blocks. For this click on “Add Block” and browse through the blocks catalog to select “Sentinel-2 Level 2 (BOA) AOI clipped” and click on “Add Block”.

Similarly, under the processing block select “Burnt Area Extraction” and click on “Add Block”.

Figure 3: Add Data and processing blocks

Figure 4: Select the “Sentinel-2 Level 2 (BOA) AOI clipped” data (left) and the “Burnt Area Extraction” (right) processing blocks.

Once both the blocks are added click on “Next”. Now we can configure the workflow by clicking on “Configure Job”.

Figure 5: Configure job

Selecting AOI and Dates

Now we select the area of interest (AOI) by drawing a polygon on the map. The map can be changed from street view to satellite view.

Figure 6: Input the Area of Interest (AOI) and the time interval

Since this is a time series analysis, the algorithm uses twoimages (pre- and post-event). Next we provide the dates for the analysis. In the “time” tab provide null and in the “time series” provide the date for which imagery is required. The green box indicates the interval of the first image (pre-event) and the blue box indicates the interval of the second image (post-event). Set “limit” to 1 which indicates that 1 image is selected for each given interval.

Once the details are input, we can run the “test query”. This is done to make sure there are no errors.

Note: The UP42 platform has a limit of 100 sq. km for selecting the AOI.

Real Run

On successful completion of the dry run, we can do the analysis by selecting “Run as real job”.

Figure 7: Run as Real Job

Results

Once the job is done, the results can be downloaded by clicking on “download”.

Figure 8: Download the results

Figure 9: The result is a binary raster, where the white indicates the burnt area

The result gives the statistics of the area burnt. This on further analysis can give a better understanding of infrastructure, vegetation, crop loss and also the carbon and nitrogen emissions due to the fire. For more information on the block and the work we do please visit our website.