Monitoring destruction and regrowth after forest fires with Google Earth Engine: The example of Hatay province

As is the case worldwide, forest fires are the most significant disaster endangering forest existence in our country. Millions of hectares of forested land are destroyed each year as a result of fires caused by nature or human activity, resulting in loss of life. Rapidly growing, long-lasting fires, particularly those influenced by factors such as weather conditions and land cover, cause economic losses in the areas where they occur, as well as the destruction of vegetation and habitats for the living creatures in the region. With advances in technology, remote sensing methods have become a preferred tool for simultaneous or near-simultaneous detection of forest fires, mapping burned areas, and monitoring changes in these areas over time, as in many other areas. This thesis aims to identify changes in incoming light between 2013 and 2020 in different locations in Hatay using remote sensing and to investigate the changes in revegetation following these eruptions using the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. For this purpose, different forest products known to have formed and fragmented within Hatay province were selected. Using Landsat 8 satellite imagery for the selected areas, regions damaged by wildfire were initially identified through the dNBR and dNDVI indices. Subsequently, time series created from long-term Landsat data were used to continuously monitor vegetation changes in these regions. In addition, the current land cover status of each burned area was evaluated using the dNBR index, and vegetation changes were examined in detail. To assess the accuracy of the indices used, Sentinel satellite imagery was utilized and various complexity metrics were calculated. As a result, both indices achieved accuracy rates above 80%, with Kappa coefficients (κ) ranging between 0.92 and 0.98 (except Sarımazı fire). The findings indicate that the vegetation lost due to the wildfire has been largely restored, supported by both natural processes and rehabilitation efforts carried out by the Provincial Directorate of Forestry.