La carbon footprint degli incendi boschivi

After the introduction of Law 353/2000 a systematic study of forest fires has started in Italy: they have been considered a destructive forcing of natural complexity and a source of greenhouse gases and atmospheric pollutants. Since the 1970s, satellite remote sensing has become a useful technique to study environmental phenomena thanks to its instruments, which can observe terrestrial surface remotely and in a multispectral way. In particular, satellite imagery is useful for studying wildfires because they modify spectral features of vegetation in the near and middle infrared regions. Through the analysis of three Italian cases, this paper shows the impact of forest fires on climate change. The carbon footprint of these events has been calculated integrating the results of the Landsat 8 images' elaboration with information acquired by the State Forestry Corps.