Analysis of Forest Fires by means of Pseudo Phase Plane and Multidimensional Scaling Methods

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2014

Authors

Jose Tenreiro Machado (Author) Other; António Mendes Lopes (Author) FEUP

Journal

Title: Mathematical Problems in Engineering

Vol. 2014

Pages: 1-8

ISSN: 1024-123X

Publisher: Hindawi

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 4 Citations

ISI Web of Science

Scopus - 6 Citations

Scientific classification

FOS: Engineering and technology

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-009-NW4

DOI: 10.1155/2014/575872

Abstract (EN): Forest fires dynamics is often characterized by the absence of a characteristic length-scale, long range correlations in space and time, and long memory, which are features also associated with fractional order systems. In this paper a public domain forest fires catalogue, containing information of events for Portugal, covering the period from 1980 up to 2012, is tackled. The events are modelled as time series of Dirac impulses with amplitude proportional to the burnt area. The time series are viewed as the system output and are interpreted as a manifestation of the system dynamics. In the first phase we use the pseudo phase plane (PPP) technique to describe forest fires dynamics. In the second phase we use multidimensional scaling (MDS) visualization tools. The PPP allows the representation of forest fires dynamics in two-dimensional space, by taking time series representative of the phenomena. The MDS approach generates maps where objects that are perceived to be similar to each other are placed on the map forming clusters. The results are analysed in order to extract relationships among the data and to better understand forest fires behaviour.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

Notes: Article Number: 575872

No. of pages: 8