Abstract
Monitoring the evolution of lava flows is a challenging task for volcano observatories, especially in remote volcanic areas. Here we present a near real-time (every 12 h) and free tool for producing interactive thermal maps of the advance of lava flows over time by taking advantage of the free thermal data provided by FIRMS and the open-source R software. To achieve this, we applied two filters on the FIRMS datasets, one on the satellite layout (track) and another on the fire radiative power (FRP). To determine the latter, we carried out a detailed statistical analysis of the FRP values of nine hotspot subaerial eruptions that included Cumbre Vieja-2021 (Spain), Fagradalsfjall-2021 (Iceland), LERZ Kilauea-2018 (USA), and six eruptions on the Galápagos Archipelago (Ecuador). We found that an FRP filter of 35 ± 17 MW/pixel worked well at the onset and during the first weeks of an eruption. Afterward, once the cumulative statistical parameters had stabilized, a filter that better fit the investigated case could be obtained by running our statistical code. Using the suggested filters, the thermal maps resulting from our mapping code have an accuracy higher than 75% on average when compared with the official lava flow maps of each eruption and an offset of only 3% regarding the maximum lava flow extension. Therefore, our easy-to-use codes constitute an additional, novel, and simple tool for rapid preliminary mapping of lava fields during crises, especially when regular overflights and/or unoccupied aerial vehicle campaigns are out of budget.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 3483 |
| Journal | Remote Sensing |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue number | 14 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 20 Jul 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2022 by the authors.
Funding
We acknowledge the use of data from NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) ( https://earthdata.nasa.gov/firms , last accessed on 13 June 2022). We also thank the National Land Survey of Iceland, Institute of Earth Sciences—University of Iceland, Icelandic Institute of Natural History and the Icelandic Met Office for sharing the shapefiles of the area covered by lava flows during the Fagradalsfjall 2021 eruption, in particular Lovísa Mjöll Guðmundsdóttir. The first author also thanks Diego Narváez for introducing him to the R environment. We also thank the four anonymous reviewers an the editor for their thoughtful comments that improved the manuscript. This research was conducted in the context of IG-EPN’s project “Generación de Capacidades para la Emisión de Alertas Tempranas” funded by Secretaría Nacional de Planificación y Desarrollo (SENPLADES).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Secretaría Nacional de Planificación y Desarrollo |
Keywords
- FIRMS
- VIIRS
- effusive eruption
- lava flow
- mapping
- thermal sensing
- volcanic crises