Post-fire vegetation dynamics of a temperate mixed forest: An assessment based on the variability of Landsat spectral indices

Fire plays a critical role in nutrient cycling and species diversity but also causes severe disturbances to ecosystems. Despite remote sensing has emerged as a valuable tool to study wildfires, a lack of information regarding post-fire dynamics still remains for certain regions. This study investigated the post-fire dynamics of four burned sites in the temperate forest of Chihuahua, northern Mexico from 2009 to 2017, based on the variability of spectral indices under varied topographic conditions of aspects and slopes. The Normalized Difference Vegetation index (NDVI), Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI), Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR), and Normalized Difference Water index (NDWI) were utilized to assess vegetation recovery on the burned sites. One-way ANOVAs and Tukey´s tests were performed to evaluate separately the effects of aspect and slope on the indices’ variability (p < 0.05). In general, the NDVI measured the highest values of the burned sites along the evaluated lapse while the NDWI indicated the lowest measures. Results indicated significant effects of aspect on NDVI and SAVI (p < 0.05), while slope significantly influenced the four evaluated indices (p < 0.05).That in turn showed northern aspects and steeper slopes to have the highest post-fire vegetation recoveries. Furthermore, aspect only affected the bi-annual variability of SAVI (p < 0.05). However, the NBR and NDWI showed higher magnitudes of change among periods than the SAVI (i. e., recovery and non-recovery). Besides registering a continuous recovery of the burned sites from the wildfire events to 2015, this study revealed the NDVI and SAVI as the most useful spectral indices for assessing post-fire vegetation dynamics in the region. Besides aspect and slope, future studies could focus on the inclusion of additional indicators to more effectively assess post-fire ecosystem dynamics in northern Mexico.