# Effects of Precipitation and Fire on Land Surface Phenology in the Brazilian Savannas (Cerrado)
## 5 Conclusions  
By assessing the effects of precipitation and fire on NDVI-derived phenological metrics at the ENP using the MODIS MOD13Q1 and HLS products, we concluded that the LSP metrics most positively correlated to precipitation were AMP, EOS, ISI, RIBS, and SSL. Similar trend effects of precipitation and fire were observed for AMP, EOS, and SSI, which increased during seasonal cycles with higher precipitation or with greater occurrence of fire activities. Fire effects were more pronounced than those of precipitation. When decoupling the effects of fire from rainfall influence using a control site near a burned grassland area, the metrics most sensitive to fire and subsequent vegetation recovery in burned areas were BL, VES, SSI, VSS, EOS, and AMP.  
Based on the specific objectives of this study, the following conclusions were drawn:  
(i) We did not detect in our analysis severe dry or wet seasonal cycles in the studied period (2002 to 2023), compared to the long-term rainfall measurements (1983 to 2023). Dry, regular, and wet cycles occurred alternately during the period of satellite observation.  
(ii) For the MODIS LSP metrics most sensitive to precipitation, the highest correlation coefficients were observed in woodland areas. This may reflect the higher occurrence of fire disturbance typically observed in grassland areas, which introduces variability into the data analysis.  
(iii) Analysis of the three major fire events at the ENP (2005, 2010, and 2021) revealed that the effects of fire were evident during the cycle in which the disturbance occurred, as well as in the subsequent cycle, due to vegetation recovery in fire-affected areas. Compared to control sites, burned areas exhibited greener grasslands, resulting in comparatively higher NDVI values throughout the entire seasonal cycle following the fire.  
Conceptualization and supervision, L.S.G. and T.S.K.; writing and formal analysis, M.C.d.R.S. and L.S.G.; writing--review and editing, T.S.K. and G.R. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
**Funding:** This research was funded by the Coordenacao de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior (CAPES) (Financial Code 001).  
**Data Availability Statement:** The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors on request.  
**Acknowledgments:** The authors are grateful to the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPq) (grant numbers 307792/2021-8 and 302205/2023-3) and Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP) (grant number 2023/09118-6). Comments by three anonymous reviewers were highly appreciated.  
**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Figure 14: Spatial variation in the Value for the End of Season (VES) across control and burned sites, highlighting the effects on the subsequent seasonal cycle following the fire event on 10 July 2021. Results are presented for the seasonal cycle preceding the fire event (2019/2021), the cycle during which the fire occurred (2020/2021), and two post-fire cycles characterized by vegetation recovery (2021/2022 and 2022/2023).