Development of a water budget management system for fire potential mapping

Abstract

A water budget is important for environmental models such as a fire potential model. For the eastern United States, water budget indices derived from the cumulative interplay of precipitation and evaporation characterizes moisture conditions better than the Keech-Byram drought index. Because there are various sources of precipitation and evaporation data, it is difficult to manage those data consistently through time in order to derive cumulative water budget indices. In this study, we developed a water budget management system (WBMS) that downloads climate data and calculates a water budget. A geodatabase was designed to support the WBMS. Finally, the WBMS was tested for mapping fire potential in Mississippi. Copyright © 2009 by Bellwether Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved.