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Burning Biomass in Mongolia
Magsar ERDENETUYA
Senior Remote Sensing Specialist, National Remote Sensing Center of Mongolia
Juulchinii Str 5, Ulaanbaatar 15160, Mongolia
e-mail: erdenetuya@icc.mn
0Abstract
In 1996, the National Remote Sensing Center (NRSC) began using NOAA – AVHRR data for firemonitoring in Mongolia. It expanded its detection technology with the addition of TERRA and AQUA
MODIS data, giving it a spatial resolution of 250 m as of 2008, and developed a related methodology andtechnology for detection and monitoring of active fires and mapping of burned areas over Mongolia.
Additionally, a geodatabase of existing thematic maps with scale of 1:1 million has been established andthose maps can be used for integrated analysis with remotely sensed products in order to generate new outcomes as burned biomass in pastoral areas of Mongolia.
This paper discusses remote sensing and GIS analysis of burned areas, calculation of burned biomass
over Mongolian pasture lands and integration of results of comparison with some fire emission components.
Key words: correlation, fire emission, fire monitoring, pasture biomass

1. Introduction

2. Data Sets and Methodology

The economic and social-specific features of Mongolian nature and geography account for this country’s
considerable vulnerability to natural disasters. Mongolia
has a typical continental climate, with hot summers(temperatures of up to 41°C) and cold winters (temperatures to –53°C). Rainfall is relatively scant varying from50 mm in the southern desert region, to 450 mm in mountainous areas, with 80%-96% falling in the warm period
from May to September. In spring (March-May), due tothe severe dry climate, the wind can cause a quick spreadof fires once initiated in both forest and open steppezones.
Forest and steppe fires most frequently occur in
Mongolia among Asian countries, due to its lower
humidity, dry climate and strong winds in the driest seasons (Fig. 1). According to scholarly surveys, 55.6% of
the country’s total area is located in a zone exposed toforest and grassland fires and a considerable fraction(98.5%) of the country’s forested territories are in a zone
assessed as of highest fire risk. About 95% of forest andsteppe fires in Mongolia are caused by human activities.
Remote sensing and Geagraphic Information System(GIS) techniques help in detection of active fires andestimation of burned area, as well as geo-statisticalanalysis.
Pasture types and their biomass amounts were
mapped in the early 2000s. In the present study, we haveanalyzed the burned areas by integrating, using the map
we obtained, and tried to estimate the burned biomass.

Our forest and steppe fire detection methodology using NOAA-Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer(AVHRR) data was developed in 1996 at the National
Remote Sensing Center (NRSC) and the methodologies
were upgraded and applied to Moderate resolution
Imagin Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data by timing.
Each of the TERRA and AQUA satellites with
MODIS sensors covers the Mongolian territory twice
daily. The MODIS sensor has 36 channels with 250 m,
500 m and 1 km spatial resolution and generates somestandard products such as cloud cover, Normalized
Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), snow and fire hot
spots which are available to the user community. The fireproducts are generated based on the temperature anomaly
values.
The statistical data on the number of fire occurrences
and burned area from 1963 to 2010 were analyzed for
estimation of fire risk zones and fire occurrence trends
and analyzed over five year periods.
A digital pasture map was used for burned biomass
calculation from 1996 to 2010.

Global Environmental Research
15/2011: 15-20
printed in Japan

2.1 Active fire detection
Active fires are determined on the basis of thermalband information and ground reflectance values of bothsatellites’ data.
In the NOAA-AVHRR imagery the fire spots aremostly identified by different band combinations andalso temperature values.
©2011 AIRIES16

M. ERDENETUYA#★

Fig. 1 A map showing forest and steppe fires. (9 April 2011, Terra and Aqua MODIS data, produced by Information and Computer
Center National Remote Sensing Center, NAMEM of the Ministry for Nature, Environment and Tourism.)

The fire product from the MODIS data consists of two
different parts; one is the hot spot geographic location fileand the other is red dots extracted from raw imagery at
1 km spatial resolution. At the NRSC, we are still working on the checking and validation procedure for the hot
spots and on fire map generation at 250 m resolution.

2.3 Burned biomass estimation
A pasture (hay) map of Mongolia was developed in
the early 2000s and it indicates the biomass amount ofeach pasture type. We extracted the yearly burned biomass amount from this map for the period of 1996 to2010.

2.2 Burned area calculation
After the spring and autumn forest and steppe fires
stop completely, we produce a map of the burned area for
the whole territory of Mongolia. Our main method formapping the burned area has been an unsupervisedclassification method with simple digitizing techniques
for calculating the burned area, using image processing
and GIS software.
In real time, we generate value added fire maps with arough estimation of the active fire area, such as the widthand length of the burning area in terms of kilometers. The
MODIS-data-based calculation of the burned area isestimated to be 16 times better than that using National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
satellite data.

3. Results
3.1 Fire detection
Since the establishment of a NOAA satellite receiving
station at the NRSC of Mongolia in 1987, the staff of theCenter has developed and tested technologies formonitoring natural disasters, such as forest and steppe
fires, droughts, floods, meteorological phenomena, etc.
The recent fire danger situation in forest and steppezones has challenged the staff of the NRSC to test andimprove their operational technology so as to process andtransfer fire location and other data quickly to disasterrelated and administrative organizations. In the last three
years, 788 fires have been detected primarily by satellitedata, thus saving millions of dollars. The accuracy ofdetected hot spots as fires is estimated to be 78.9% of thetotal number of cases between 1996 and 2009.

Burning Biomass in Mongolia

3.2 Burned area maps
Since 1986 we have mapped burned areas twice a year,
for spring and autumn. From that, we have mapped thetotal burned area of whole country (Erdenesaikhan and
Erdenetuya, 1999). After 2007, 250 m MODIS data wereused, improving the accuracy of the burned area map.
Figure 2 shows the size of burned forest and steppeareas and Fig. 3 shows the burned area map for 1997,
overlapped with the pasture map of Mongolia which wasused in estimating the burned biomass.
3.3 Fire occurrence statistics
The probability of occurrences of fire in the country’s
forests and steppe areas substantially increases in the dry
periods of spring and autumn. Over 60% of the forest
fires are recorded to take place during a period from April
to May, with 65.5% breaking out in the afternoon,
between 12.00 and 16.00 hours.
Although in most cases fire occurrences are triggeredby human actions (93.6%), there are also natural factors
leading to fire occurrences. In other words, at times when17

the weather is dry, there is plenty of inflammable material
in the forest and wind speeds are higher, all these factors
provide favorable preconditions for fire occurrences. The
probability of forest fire occurrences decreases to very
insignificant when the amount of precipitation exceeds
2.0 mm. Fires raging in arid pastures are often associatedwith strong winds. On April 11, 1996, a violent windrampaged through the territories of the eastern aimags(provinces), a fierce steppe fire covering 711,000 hectaresof Dornod Aimag’s seven soums (sub provinces) killed
33,700 head of cattle, destroyed over 160 pens and 90// 10.6 million
gers, causing damages estimated at MNT(Mongolian tugrugs) (April 2006 value: ca. $US 10,000),
and killing or injuring fourteen people. According torecent statistics, 50-60 forest fires and 80-100 grassland
fires are recorded in Mongolia every year (Wingard et al.,1998 and updated).
The number of fire occurrences and the area affectedby fires were analyzed for five-year periods and areshown in Table 1. Winters and springs from 1996 to 1998
were extremely dry, with snow lacking in most areas.

Fig. 2 The burned forest and steppe area, 1963 - 2010.

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M. ERDENETUYA

Number of Fire Starts

Polynomial Trend of Firesy = – 0.135x2 – 8.729x + 30.39

Fig. 4 Number of fires occurring from 1963 to 2010.

Fig. 5 Pasture biomass map of Mongolia.
Table 1 Number of fires and area destroyed by fire
(thousands of hectares).
Average
Total burnedarea
hectares
NumberPeriod(thousands
burned perof firesof hectares)
fire event
1966 – 1970376
3520.3
9.4
1971 – 1975
456
1856.6
4.1
1976 – 1980
999
7529.07.5
1981 – 1985
513
3925.2
7.7
1986 – 1990
900
8516.09.5
1991 – 1995
581
14144.6
24.3
1996 – 2000
1128
35979.4
31.9
2001 – 2005
704
17205.6
24.4
2006 – 2010
710
8388.6
11.8

From late February to early June of these years, Mongolia
suffered from large-scale forest and steppe fires thatdevastated large parts of the country. During these fire
episodes 29 people died, 82 people were injured and11,700 head of livestock were killed. Also, 218 family
houses, 1,066 communication facilities, 750 fences and26.3 million hectares of pasture and forest were burned(Goldammer, 2009). The total costs of property losses// 820.2 million. Ecological and ecoamounted to MNT// 1,850.5 million
nomical damage were estimated at MNT(December 1999 value: ca. $US 1.8 million).
Due to the extremely high number of fire occurrences
and their extent, the period of 1996-2000 ranked highest
in all fire parameters. As for the area affected by fires
starting from 1980, some 25% of the country’s forest
resources or 2.4 million hectares of land were destroyed// 32.6 billion in 1996.
and the damage amounted to MNTBurning Biomass in Mongolia

3.4 Burned biomass calculation
Mongolia is a highland country located deep within
the interior of Eurasia and has a marked continental
climate with poor soil fertility, scanty surface water
resources and harsh natural conditions.
Grassland comprises over 80% of its territory. It is
assumed that most of today’s steppe vegetation is on
formerly forested sites that were degraded by fires.
Wildfires constitute a major factor determining the
spatial and temporal dynamics of forest ecosystems.
The burned biomass of each burned pasture type was
extracted through a GIS integrated analysis of a pasturebiomass map and a burnt area map.
According to results presented in the Global Fire
Emission Database (GFED website) from 1997 to 2009,
fire emission values of carbon, carbon dioxide andmethane for all of Mongolia are seen to be fairly close to
the average for Central Asian countries and constituteless than 10% of total emissions, except in 1997 (Fig. 7).
These data were obtained from ORNL DAAC using theTable 2 Burned biomass estimation.
Total burned area,
Total burnedYearhectares (ha)biomass, tons
1996
11,146,582.84
91,900,499.49
1997
12,840,587.58
106,228,449.24
1998
3,750,466.88
32,018,024.26
1999
3,199,709.26
24,857,472.19
2000
7,847,866.65
72,197,949.68
2001
855,241.39
9,112,004.08
2002
603,218.23
3,486,229.58
2003
3,083,190.77
27,910,489.36
2004
922,214.32
7,830,604.48
2005
725,093.30
6,756,216.46
2006
1,752,419.42
16,330,429.18
2007
3,026,175.43
24,742,481.26
2008
1,560,526.49
12,532,639.53
2009
1,004,219.31
5,475,135.04
2010
1,005,322.70
9,189,426.40

Burned biomass
per ha, tons/ha
8.24
8.27
8.54
7.77
9.20
10.65
5.78
9.05
8.49
9.32
9.32
8.18
8.03
5.45
9.14

19

citation of Randerson et al. (2010). The GFED model
developers have issued a notification requiring thesevalues to be used carefully so in this paper we have only
included a statistical comparison and correlation of thesecomponents with burned biomass during this period.
The above air pollutants were well correlatedwith burned biomass calculated using remote sensing and
GIS techniques, and Fig. 8 shows a positive correlation
between CO2 and burned biomass.

4. Conclusions
Our research showed that real time MODIS data ismore accurate in fire-scar mapping than NOAA NDVI.
This was proven by the overall accuracies obtained when
the two sensors were used in the mapping of fire scars.
The fire statistics were analyzed for five-year periods,
and due to an extremely high number of fire occurrencesand extent of burning, the period of 1996-2000 ranked
highest in all fire parameters (number of fires, burned
area, damage, etc.).
ts

Fig. 6 Burned biomass per hectare area.

Fig. 7 Fire emissions of C, CO2 and CH4 over Mongolia. (from Global Fire Emission Data base)

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1E+12,g/yr

References

Burned biomasstsFig. 8 Correlation between fire emission component CO2 andburned biomass.

The burned biomass calculation was done first for
pasture land. However, forest fires accounted for 22% of
the total fires, and are therefore further needed to beconsidered in burned forest biomass estimation.
Results posted in the Global Fire Emission Databasewere used for Mongolia, considering only carbon, carbon
dioxide and methane in order to compare these emissions
values with burned biomass, and these three types ofpollutants were found to be well correlated with burned
biomass. Future studies should continue by examining
this kind of correlation with other gases.

Acknowledgements
I thank the Remote Sensing Division of the NRSC of
Mongolia for supporting my completion of this work. I
would like to express special thanks to the GOFC-GOLD
Fire Implementation Team for providing updated Global
Fire Emission Databases for this research work.

Erdenesaikhan, N. and N, Erdenetuya (1999) Forest and steppe firemonitoring in Mongolia using satellite remote sensing. International Forest Fire News, 21: 71-74.
Goldammer, J. (2009) Compilation of the Mongolia country reportat the Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC) on the basis of thefollowing sources, International Forest Fire News.
Randerson, J., Guido van der Werf et al. (2010) Impacts of Fires on
Atmospheric CO, CH4 and CO2 and Reactive Nitrogen Fluxes,
NCAR, Junior Faculty Forum, July 2010.
Wingard, J.R., N. Erdenesaikhan and M. Erdenetuya (1998) The
German – Mongolian technical cooperation GTZ integrated fire
management project Khan Khentii protected area, Mongolia.
International Forest Fire News, 19: 64-66
Website:http://www.falw.vu/~gwerf/GFED/GFED3/tables/countries/
Global Fire Emission Database:
Information and Computer Center, http://www.icc.mm/

Magsar ERDENETUYA
Dr. Magsar ERDENETUYA is a senior remotesensing specialist at the National Remote Sensing
Center of Mongolia. Her work has involved
developing remote sensing application for application to natural disaster and natural resources
monitoring. Her research focuses on developmentof a methodology and technology for pasture monitoring and biomass
estimation using long-term satellite NDVI datasets.

(Received 30 May 2011, Accepted 7 October 2011)