In the area of Stara Planina mountain, a multispectral survey of forest vegetation was performed. Data acquisition was done with unmanned aerial system DJI Phantom 4 Pro, equipped with integrated RGB 20Mpix sensor, and MicaSense RedEdge M, 5-channel narrowband multispectral sensor. Data was collected in the form of images, and 4 composite orthomosaics were produced-broadband visible RGB, narrowband visible RGB, and with vegetation indices applied NDVI and NDRE. RGB orthomosaic showed no significant changes in canopies apart from the variability of levels of green. Orthomosaics with vegetation indices applied showed changes in the level of physiological activities of leaves. NDVI map showed the negative changes of the top of the canopies, while NDRE map showed more dramatic changes within the canopy as well. Besides the map, 5 polygons with different NDRE values were selected and their respective spectral signature graphs were produced. The areas with the lowest NDRE values had the highest reflectance values in all wavelengths, while the absorption of light is much higher in physiologically active vegetation. Values of NDRE lower than 0.479 were inspected from the ground. This kind of ground-truth provided evidence that the areas coded in red were with lower physiological activity due to the infestation by beech leaf-mining weevil Orchestes fagi L. Another interesting finding was that both NDVI and NDRE values were higher in the areas not directly exposed to the sunlight. The areas shaded by surrounding canopies received only diffuse light but it showed a more positive ratio between absorbed and reflected wavelength which could be characteristic of the Fagus Sylvatica species. The findings in this study showed a strong correlation between low values NDRE vegetation index and negative changes deep within the canopy of high vegetation, which can serve as an indicator of pest infestation in forestry.
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