Project FE2: New methods to assess post fire events


The program engaged researchers at the NSW Department of Planning and Environment to lead and deliver tools and methods to assess and predict vegetation recovery after post-fire events.

National and global trends in wildfire activity are increasing with warmer and drier spring seasonal climate conditions. This places increased emphasis on planning and monitoring post-fire ecological recovery across NSW forests.

The program team have delivered a final report.

Project outcomes

The project developed a new innovative remote sensing method to monitor post-fire vegetation recovery and estimate regrowth after a forest fire event. This will allow important baseline information for on-going assessments at regular intervals.

The project undertook a comprehensive literature review, developed and tested new modelling platforms and collected field data to validate the model. The post-fire spectral recovery method is designed to fully integrate with the NSW Fire Extent and Severity Mapping program (or commonly known as FESM). The research also focused on complementary lines of research including modelling to predict likely time for full vegetation recovery, analysis on historical fire severity and patterns and testing application of LiDAR capabilities.

Researchers have outlined further work including steps to move the research into an operational work program.

The final project summary report is now available below, along with supporting papers such as the literature review. Researchers have submitted manuscripts for peer-review and publication in scientific journals.

Project partners

Dr Rebecca Gibson, Energy, Environment and Science unit at the NSW Department of Planning and Environment led the team with partners from the NSW Rural Fire Service, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, the Bushfire Management Research Hub at University of Wollongong, the Joint Remote Sensing Research Program, the University of NSW, and the University of Queensland.

Papers and reports