Thermal Infrared Remote Sensing of Surface and Underground Coal Fires

  • Claudia Kuenzer
  • Jianzhong Zhang
  • Li Jing
  • Guo Huadong
  • Stefan Dech
Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing book series (RDIP, volume 17)

Abstract

Surface and underground coal fires are burning in numerous countries worldwide. China, India, the USA, Australia, Indonesia, South Africa, and many other countries all report uncontrollably burning coal fires. They ignite through spontaneous combustion of coal, or through lightning, forest fires, fires in garbage dumps, or careless human behaviour. Coal fires lead to the loss of the valuable resource and lead to the emission of green-house gasses as well as toxic gasses. These gasses contribute to climate change and also impact human health. Vegetation above the fires deteriorates. Due to the volume loss underground coal fires also trigger land subsidence and surface bedrock collapses. The surface and underground fires can be detected and monitored by means of remote sensing. Data acquired with handheld thermal cameras, airborne sensors, and also spaceborne sensors have been analyzed by numerous authors. However, exact and simultaneously standardized as well as transferable methods for coal fire detection and monitoring are hard to establish, and research gaps still exist This chapter presents a broad overview of past and current coal fire work, as well as the challenges which can be addressed based on thermal data of recent and upcoming sensors.

Keywords

Underground Fire Thermal Anomaly Coal Fire Thermal Band Nighttime Data 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Notes

Acknowledgements

The authors thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the manuscript. Further thanks go all our friends and colleagues who supported our coal fire research in the last years, especially to Sun Yulin, Jia Yaorong, Glenn Stracher, Paul van Dijk, and Wolfgang Wagner.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  • Claudia Kuenzer
    • 1
  • Jianzhong Zhang
    • 2
  • Li Jing
    • 3
  • Guo Huadong
    • 4
  • Stefan Dech
    • 1
  1. 1.German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD), Earth Observation Center (EOC), German Aerospace Center (DLR)OberpfaffenhofenGermany
  2. 2.Beijing ESKY Technology LimitedBeijingChina
  3. 3.College of Resources Science and TechnologyBeijing Normal UniversityBeijingChina
  4. 4.Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth (CEODE)BeijingChina

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