DOI: https://doi.org/10.14710/geoplanning.12.2.197-214

Modelling Spatial-Temporal Wildfire Susceptibility Using Geospatial Techniques Over the Table Mountain Nature Reserve, South Africa

Syed Tanweer Raza Nujjoo  -  Division of Geomatics, School of Architecture Planning and Geomatics, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa, South Africa
*Patroba Achola Odera orcid scopus  -  Division of Geomatics, School of Architecture Planning and Geomatics, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa, South Africa

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Abstract

Mountains in Cape Town are generally highly susceptible to wildfire due to the hot-dry summer months and various climatological factors that could aggravate the situation. In fact, the Cape Floral Kingdom in Table Mountain National Park is categorized as the world’s hottest floral hotspot. This study has utilized geospatial techniques to model spatial-temporal wildfire susceptibility over the Table Mountain Nature Reserve (TMNR) from 1978 to 2022 at a nearly 10-year interval epoch. This is achieved by first mapping and categorizing influential factors such as land use/land cover, aspect, temperature, slope, normalized difference vegetation index, precipitation, elevation, and wind speed. The categorized layers are then weighted and numerically integrated to determine wildfire susceptibility (WS) levels based on wildfire susceptibility index (WSI) over the TMNR. Results show that low WS levels occurred only in 1978, 1991 and 2014 with area coverage at 0.1% 0.01%, and 0.6% of the total area of TMNR, respectively. All the epochs contained moderate WS (24.5%; 24.8%; 4.4%; 32.6%; 4.0%), high WS (67.2%; 70.3%; 73.4%; 63.2%; 77.0%) and very high WS (8.2%; 4.9%; 22.2%; 3.6%; 19.0%) for 1978, 1991, 2002, 2014, and 2022, respectively. In general, results indicate increasing wildfire susceptibility over the TMNR, with the northern and western parts being the highly susceptible areas.

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Keywords: Wildfire Susceptibility Index; Weighted Overlay Analysis; Image Analysis; Table Mountain National Park
Funding: Not applicable

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Section: Original Research
Language : EN
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