Southern Africa Validation of the MODIS, L3JRC, and GlobCarbon Burned-Area Products

Three available global multi-annual burned area products (L3JRC, GlobCarbon, and MODIS) are validated for a burning season across southern Africa. Validation is undertaken using the same independent reference data and using the same validation and reporting protocol. The independent reference data were derived by interpreting multitemporal Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus data to map the location and approximate date of burning at 11 Landsat scenes distributed across southern Africa and covering approximately 295 000 km². The accuracy of the products was quantified using metrics derived from confusion matrices to characterize product accuracy for local applications and using metrics derived through a linear regression on a 5 times 5 km grid to characterize product accuracy for coarser scale applications. Quantitative results are described, and the differences between the products are discussed.