A New Approach Based on TensorFlow Deep Neural Networks with ADAM Optimizer and GIS for Spatial Prediction of Forest Fire Danger in Tropical Areas

Abstract

Frequent forest fires are causing severe harm to the natural environment, such as decreasing air quality and threatening different species; therefore, developing accurate prediction models for forest fire danger is vital to mitigate these impacts. This research proposes and evaluates a new modeling approach based on TensorFlow deep neural networks (TFDeepNN) and geographic information systems (GIS) for forest fire danger modeling. Herein, TFDeepNN was used to create a forest fire danger model, whereas the adaptive moment estimation (ADAM) optimization algorithm was used to optimize the model, and GIS with Python programming was used to process, classify, and code the input and output. The modeling focused on the tropical forests of the Phu Yen Province (Vietnam), which incorporates 306 historical forest fire locations from 2019 to 2023 and ten forest-fire-driving factors. Random forests (RF), support vector machines (SVM), and logistic regression (LR) were used as a baseline for the model comparison. Different statistical metrics, such as F-score, accuracy, and area under the ROC curve (AUC), were employed to evaluate the models’ predictive performance. According to the results, the TFDeepNN model (with F-score of 0.806, accuracy of 79.3%, and AUC of 0.873) exhibits high predictive performance and surpasses the performance of the three baseline models: RF, SVM, and LR; therefore, TFDeepNN represents a novel tool for spatially predicting forest fire danger. The forest fire danger map from this study can be helpful for policymakers and authorities in Phu Yen Province, aiding sustainable land-use planning and management.