Wildfire burn severity in the mediterranean biome: a systematic review

Wildfire burn severity serves as a key metric for understanding the ecological consequences of wildfires, particularly in the face of accelerating global climate change. This review aims to investigate the methods used to assess burn severity on a global scale to highlight the essential role of Geospatial Information Science in the knowledge production related to Sustainable Development Goals 11 and 15. To achieve this, a systematic review was conducted to evaluate the methods used for research on burn severity in Mediterranean-type ecosystems. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Statement was used to perform the systematic review. The databases utilised for the review includes ScienceDirect, Scopus, and Web of Science, 735 articles were retrieved for screening. Following the screening process the systematic literature review critically examined 54 peer-reviewed articles published between 2015 and 2024, with a focus on burn severity research across the world’s five Mediterranean-type ecosystems. The results reveal a marked geographic skew, with the majority of research concentrated in Southern Europe especially in Spain and Portugal despite the ecological importance of comparable Mediterranean regions such as North Africa, Chile, Cyprus, South Africa, and Australia. Remote sensing-based methodologies were prominently employed, accounting for approximately 82% of the studies reviewed. Sentinel-2 and Landsat imagery were the most commonly utilized data sources, while analytical approaches predominantly relied on burn severity indices such as dNBR, NBR, and NDVI. These findings underscore the pivotal contribution of geospatial technologies in wildfire research, while simultaneously highlighting the research gap in Mediterranean ecosystems particularly in the Southern Hemisphere.