Investigation of the effects of forest fires on air quality and land surface temperature by remote sensing methods

Forests are terrestrial ecosystems that contain all living beings, from large creatures such as trees to the smallest microorganisms, and they provide the atmosphere necessary balance for life. Forests covering 31% of the world and 30% of our country provides all kinds of living things with opportunities such as food and shelter and helps nature to maintain its functioning in a balanced way. Forest fires occur due to reasons such as drought and high temperature, which occur as a result of climate change, and increase in human activities in forest areas. As a result of these fires, various polluting gases and particles are released into the atmosphere, reducing the air quality. The increase in the temperature of the soil surface during fires also damages the soil ecosystem. The fact that remote sensing methods are fast and practical makes it possible to detect and examine these damages of forest fires without going to the fire area. In this thesis, it is aimed to examine the effects of forest fires in our country in the summer of 2021 on air quality and land surface temperature with remote sensing techniques. It was observed that the air quality of Antalya and Muğla provinces, which suffered the most from the forest fires, decreased during the forest fires and the land surface temperature increased in the fire regions. According to the analyzes performed on the satellite images taken, there were increases in CO, NO2 and PM10 values , during the fires in the provinces of Antalya and Muğla. In addition, the increased land surface temperatures in the fire areas continued to be higher for a while after the fires were extinguished. As a result, it has been understood that forest fires increase the land surface temperature of the region and cause air pollution by reducing the air quality in the light of similar studies in the literature and this thesis.