Mapping forest fuels through vegetation phenology: the role of coarse-resolution satellite time-series.

Traditionally fuel maps are built in terms of 'fuel types', thus considering the structural characteristics of vegetation only. The aim of this work is to derive a phenological fuel map based on the functional attributes of coarse-scale vegetation phenology, such as seasonality and productivity. MODIS NDVI 250 m images of Sardinia (Italy), a large Mediterranean island with high frequency of fire incidence, were acquired for the period 2000-2012 to construct a mean annual NDVI profile of the vegetation at the pixel-level.