Application of GPS Survey Methods for Burnt Forest Areas Monitoring! 
Checcucci Giovanni ? , Ferretti Fabrizio! . Gherardi Ludovico' 
Acknowledgment to Forestry Corps of Bologna and Station Command of Vergato and Monzuno for the collaboration in the 
KEY WORDS 
1 K010 Forestry 
9 K083 Monitoring 
3 K131 GPS 
survey. 
ABSTRACT 
This is the result of a collaboration between the Emilia- 
Romagna Regional Administration and the firm SISCAM, for 
the testing of an effective methodology which, by using an 
informatic system operating an PC and exploiing GPS, 
permits an operative joint exploitation of photographic and 
cartographic material for the rapid monitoring of areas 
envoloped by forest fires. 
Tests and evaluations were carried out on all necessary 
passages starting from the survey plan to the implementation 
of the Forestry Informative System and to the resulting and 
non-cartographic data. 
The potential use of 23 cm photogrammes in the SISCAM 
program was also assessed and explicitly applied to the 
orthogonalisation of the images and to the handling of the 
photogrammetric equipment. 
Considering the time required from the survey to the 
cartographic restitution, the method used was altogether valid 
and, seeing the procedures potentiality, was worthy of further 
investigation. 
Introduction 
The following study concetns: 
- heving a database method use of GPS equipment which was : 
finalised specifically to the cartographic survey of the two 
areas overrun by fire and the successive input of dates 
obtained inside the GIS operating on PC in ARC-VIEW base 
system given over to collecting and the processing of the 
Forestry Inventory Data of the Emilia-Romagna Regional 
Administration. 
- Assessment of the operative possibilities and economic 
advantages of the use of GPS data linked to informatic 
systems for the correction of aerial photogrammes, taken for 
rapid monitoring of small vegetated areas enveloped by forest 
fires. 
The survey work and the data processing of GPS was carried 
out by technicians and collaborators of the Landscape, Park 
and Natural Heritage Department of the Emilia-Romagna 
Regional Administration with the co-operation of the Italian 
State Corps of Foresters. The photogrammetric elaboration 
was carried out by the firm SISCAM. 
The programme evolved with the following aims. 
- To assess the operative possibilities of the GPS equipment in 
the cartographic field. 
- To evaluate the possibility of an integrated use of aerial shots 
and GPS data for territory studies. 
— 
, The authors contributed in equal parts to this survey . 
; Siscam, Firenze. 
- To test the correct rapid intervention methods to adopt with 
the scope of monitoring areas involved in natural calamities 
(forest fires in thís case). 
Research Areas 
Two areas were chosen as experimental objectives. They were 
both ravaged by two forest fires , probably caused by arson, 
on the 2nd August 1995. These areas Bre situated in the 
mountainous part of the Province of Bologna, along, the trunk 
road 64 (Porrettana) which runs into the Municipal territories 
of Marzabotto (loc. Sibano) and Vergato (loc. Tabina). 
The fire, possibly caused by the same person (in both cases it 
broke out simultaneously between 12 a.m. and 12.30 a.m.) 
end began from the trunk road and spread over the highway 
up to the over hanging belts. 
The first of these two sites (loc. Sibano) could be divided 
into three different typologies: 
- à steeply sloping, shrubby strip set on fire many times, 
taking in the highway and immediate neighbouring areas; 
- a relatively flat cultiveted area; 
- a Woody zone (especially small oaks) situated at high 
altitude. 
The second arson area (loc. Tabina) was almost completely 
composed of degraded shrubbery, the result of many fires 
over the past few years, and the excessively clayey soil. 
The extention of these burnt up areas was visually assessed by 
the personnel of the State Forestry Corps (CFS) but no 
precise carthographic survey or photographic monitoring was 
carried out. 
. Scope of the Research, 
The scope of this research was to make: 
- a precise planimeter of the areas overrun by fire; 
- to verify the topographic accuracy of the survey through 
GPS gathering of the elements present in cartography and to 
confront these resuls with the Regional Technical 
Cartography (CTR), on a 1:5.000 and 1:10.000 scale (this 
procedure was also necessary to positioning in the graphic 
elaboration of the survey in the CTR), 
- to verify the possibility to run a complex database specially 
assigned to survey forest fires through the datalogger of the 
GPS system (in this case the combustion indication report 
used by CFS) using the options of running a Pfinder 3.00 
program (Trimble software run by GPS); 
- to verify the survey time in the countryside and the difficulty 
to function in complex conditions; 
- to establish a minimum and maximum surface where the 
GPS survey was adapt; 
* Dottore Forestale external collaborator of Landscape, Parks end Natural Heritage Department Emilia-Romagna Region} 
' Dottore di Ricerca in F orestry Planning at the Institute of Forestry Management and Technology, University of 
Florence. Forestry Official, Landscape, Parks and Natural Heritage Emilia-Romagna Region. 
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B4. Vienna 1996