We have a question regarding data processing. We need to calculate weighted fuel moisture content by different fuel types (e.g., dead wood, dead foliage, live fuel). We are considering the following two weighting approaches. Whether both are acceptable, or should we strictly use dry mass weighting in Approach 2?
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Approach 1: (Mᵢ / ΣMᵢ) × FMCᵢ, where i represents different fuel types, Mᵢ the fuel load mass, and FMCᵢ the fuel moisture content. Mᵢ and FMCᵢ will use the data from A global fuel characteristic model and dataset for wildfire prediction, Biogeosciences, (https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-279-2024; https://xds-preprod.ecmwf.int/datasets/derived-fire-fuel-biomass?tab=overview)
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Approach 2: (DMᵢ / ΣDMᵢ) × FMCᵢ, where DMᵢ is dry mass. Since DMᵢ is not directly provided, may I derive DMᵢ using the standard relationship DMᵢ × (1 + FMCᵢ) = Mᵢ?
A related follow-up question: Since the fuel load mass (Mᵢ) and moisture content (FMCᵢ) in your dataset come from different methods, are the two Mᵢ-weighted approaches described above reasonable? Or is there any better way to obtain the weighted fuel moisture content based on the data?
I would be very grateful if there is any answer.