Upland burn monitoring through integration of Sentinel 1 and Sentinel 2

Aim

Building on last year's Upland Burn Mapping project, this project will investigate the ability to monitor upland burning through combining Sentinel 1 and Sentinel 2 data. It will provide a reliable and efficient way to increase the information held by Natural England, enhance the validity of the work and enable continuous monitoring across the year rather than just during the managed burn season.

Achieving this overarching aim will require developing or utilising an existing macroeconomic model to deliver scenario analysis based on a shortlist of policy interventions provided by Defra and modelling outputs from a multiregional input-output model. This analysis will support planned consultation and decision-making related to targets being scoped in the area of resource efficiency and waste reduction under powers sought through the Environment Bill. It is not expected that a detailed economic appraisal is feasible for each intervention, but rather a lighter-touch analysis across a range of scenarios is sought. The authority is open to proposals on a proportionate and feasible approach for this analysis within the proposed timetable.

Background

The purpose of this research is to investigate the ability to monitor abrupt structural vegetation change in UK upland environments through combining Sentinel 1 with Sentinel 2 derived data. This change can occur due to both cutting and burning (managed burning and wildfires).

This work is to help understand and monitor the impact of changes, especially managed burning and wildfires to support policy development relating to protected site, Net Zero, the 25-year Environment Plan, and England Peat Action Plan. This evidence will help Natural England and Defra meet requirements to understand change in management on moorland with peat soils in response to regulatory changes and policy initiatives.

Using remotely sensed data will allow a national picture of change to be developed with improved spatial and temporal detail. This will help inform:

• The scale, distribution and frequency of change activities.
• An understanding of compliance with regulation and behaviour change in response to regulation
• Damage caused by wildfires to habitats and wildlife on protected sites and areas of deep peat.
• Good land management practices and behaviours that could be promoted to reduce the likelihood or impact of wildfires into the future.

The use of radar imagery to monitor upland change has been explored in a few previous projects:

• Environment Systems prior to S1 imagery being available - report available on request.
• An MSc project overseen by JNCC - report available on request
• Upland Burn Detection with Radar - report available on request.

Tender Documents

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