Development of a Web GIS System Based on the MaxEnt Approach for Wildfire Management: A Case Study of East Azerbaijan

Abstract

Background:The online and efficient information about the spatial distribution of wildfire susceptibility and occurrence has a major role in improving of fire prevention activities. Materials and Methods: In this study a maximum entropy (MaxEnt) approach was used for modeling wildfire susceptibility in East Azerbaijan Province and a webGIS system called fire susceptibility webGIS system (FSWS) was developed to easily share and utilize data and facilities among local people and managers. The methodology was composed of three different phases. First, dependent and independent variables were produced by several methods includingimage processing technique, interpolation method and GIS analysis. Next, the wildfire susceptibility was analyzed by using a MaxEnt approach to predict the possibility of wildfire occurrence based on history of wildfire data and environmental variables (anthropogenic, topography, climate and vegetation datasets) during 2005–2015 and the model performs well in terms of accuracy, with an area under ROC curve (AUC) value of 0.909. Finally, the webGIS system was developed by up to date and proper information. Results: This webGIS system was provided from the spatial database of variables, wildfire susceptibility map, fire occurrence layers and base maps. FSWS was set up based on ArcGIS component and provided the facilities and capabilities of a web application that would be used by any user even without any prior knowledge of the GIS field. Conclusions: By FSWS, the environmental authorities will be able to design many operational plans to control the wildfires, supporting conservation managers in improving pre-fire management and raise the awareness among the local people.