Detection of bark beetle infestation using Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)
Abstract
Ongoing climate change is attributed to essentially affect the rise of bark beetle damage [1,2]. After the particularly warm summer 2015, a major increase is expected for the current year [3]. To minimize the damage in Austrian forests, intensified activities are necessary to monitor the population and for the fast detection of infestations. Remote sensing methods can ideally complement the time and cost consuming terrestrial operations. The potential for this task has already been demonstrated with commercial satellite data [4]. Their limiting factors are the relatively high costs and the low flexibility of the acquisitions (fixed overpass times). Whereas UAV systems, with their enhanced flexibility, can build an essential element of a monitoring system. This project investigates the practicability of UAV data, captured with very high spatial and high spectral resolution (incl. NIR and thermal). Of particular interest are the two major questions: 1. Is a timely and reliably detection of bark beetle infested Norway spruce trees possible? 2. Are mono-temporal acquisitions sufficient for the successful detection? To answer these questions a test site in a forest enterprise will be periodically monitored with UAV. The data analysis will be carried out on single tree level with applying automatic crown delimitation. Differences between attacked and healthy trees will be examined as well as the temporal change. Additional in-situ data will be collected and used for validation.
keywords UAV Bark beetle Monitoring spruce multispectral
Publikationen
Project staff
Markus Immitzer
Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Markus Immitzer MSc.
markus.immitzer@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-85732
Project Leader
01.07.2016 - 31.05.2017