Recovery of Forest Vegetation in a Burnt Area in the Republic of Korea: A Perspective Based on Sentinel-2 Data

Abstract

Forest fires are severe disasters that cause significant damage in the Republic of Korea and the entire world, and an effort is being made to prevent forest fires internationally. The Republic of Korea budgets 3.38 million USD every year to prevent forest fires. However, an average of 430 wildfires occur nationwide annually. Thirty-eight percent of the forest fire budget is used for forest restoration. Restoring afforestation in the affected areas is a top priority. This study aimed to estimate the degree of vegetative regeneration using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Soil-Adjustment Vegetation Index (SAVI), and Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR). Although many studies have used NBR with NDVI to extract plant regeneration regions, they suffer from atmospheric effects and soil brightness. Thus, this study utilizes NBR with NDVI, EVI, and SAVI to accurately select areas for targeted forest restoration. Furthermore, this study applies clustering analysis to extract the spatial boundary of vegetative regenerative regions. The proposed method suggests a pixel range of vegetation indices. These ranges can be used as an indicator, such as the NBR’s Fire Severity Level, which reflects the mountain’s local characteristics, meaning that it can be useful after forest fires. Using the three vegetation indices can extract more accurate vegetation areas than using NBR with NDVI and can help determine a forest restoration target area.