Identification of forest fire risk zones in the Sartak Watershed, Kurdistan region, Iraq : GIS and remote sensing applications

Abstract EN

The study area is located SE of Darbandikhan town, which is about 158 km far from the Sulaymaniyah city.

In the present study, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) based model and multiple parameter analysis are applied to identify forest fire risk zones in Sartak watershed using Geographic Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) techniques.

Satellite images are used to generate vegetation, roads, settlements and farmland maps.

Slope gradient, slope aspect and elevation maps are derived from Digital Elevation Model (DEM).

Whereas, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) data is used to build up mean annual rainfall map of the study area.

Forest fire risk zone map was delineated from the scored and weighted layers of all influencing factors on forest fire (vegetation, slope gradient, slope aspect, altitude, rainfall, distances from settlements, roads, international border and farmlands).

As a consequence, the study area is classified into five forest fire risk classes.

16.16% of the total area falls in the category of very high risk, followed by 25.37%, 24.51%, 19.01%, and 14.95% in the categories high, moderate, low and very low, respectively.

The results help and enable the institutions concerned with forests to set up appropriate fire-fighting infrastructure for the areas more prone to fire damage and exploit the geological and geomorphical situation of the study area to build a natural protection area