Assessment of burned forest area severity and postfire regrowth in chapada Diamantina National Park (Bahia, Brazil) using dNBR and RdNBR spectral indices

Fire scar detection through orbital data can be done using specific techniques, such as the use of spectral indices like the normalized burn ratio (NBR), which are designed to help identify burnt areas as they have typical spectral responses. This paper aims to characterize burn severity and regrowth in areas hit by three fires in the Chapada Diamantina National Park (Bahia, Brazil) and its surrounding area through the differenced normalized burn ratio (dNBR) and relative differenced normalized burn ratio (RdNBR) spectral indices. The data acquired were pretreated and prepared adequately to calculate the indices. We conclude that for the study area, considering the limitations of fieldwork, the multitemporal index dNBR and the relative index RdNBR are important tools for classifying burnt areas and can be used to assess the regrowth of vegetation.This research was partially financed by FAPESB (Research Support Foundation of the State of Bahia) by granting a master’s scholarship (Nº BOL0141/2015), partially cofinanced by the Annual Land Cover and Use Mapping Project in Brazil (MapBiomas), and partially cofinanced by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the COMPETE 2020 Operational Programme Competitiveness and Internationalization (POCI) and national funds by FCT under the POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006891 project (FCT Ref: UID/GEO 04084/2019)