Application of UAS for Monitoring of Forest Ecosystems

Abstract

In the last couple of years, there have been a great number of articles that cover and emphasize the advantages and possibilities that UAS (Unmanned Air System) offers in forest ecosystem research. In the available research, alongside UAS, the importance of developing sensors that are designed to be used with UAV (Unamnned Air Vehicle), a flight programming software and UAS collected data processing software have been pointed out. With the widespread use of high-precision sensors and accompanying software in forestry, it is possible to obtain accurate data in a short time that replaces long-term manpower in the field with equal or in some cases, such as windthrow calculation or wildlife counting, greater accuracy. The former practice of manual imagery processing is being partly replaced with automated approaches. The paper analyses studies that deal with some form of application of UAS in forestry, e.g. forest inventory, forest operations, ecological monitoring, forest pests and forest fires, and wildlife monitoring. In the forest inventory, a large number of studies deal with the possibilities of applying UAS in mapping vegetation and individual trees, morphological research of individual parts of trees, surface analysis, etc. The use of remote and proximal sensing technologies in forest engineering has mainly been focused on defining surface roughness and topology, road geometry, planning and maintenance, ground-based and cable-based harvesting and soil characteristics and displacement. Wildfire monitoring already relies heavily on the use of UAS and thermal cameras in operations, and it is similar to the mapping of windthrow or directions of the spread of certain insects important for forestry. In wildlife research, numerous studies deal with abundance research of individual terrestrial birds and mammals using UAS thermal imagery. With some drawbacks such as wildlife disturbance or limited UAV range, common to most of the processed studies are positive attitudes regarding the application of UAS in forestry sensing and monitoring, which is slowly becoming a common operative practice, with the scientists’ focus being on developing automated approaches in UAS imagery processing. Reducing the error by improving the technological characteristics of the sensors will in the long run reduce the number of people required to collect data important for forestry, reduce risks and in some cases increase accuracy.

Application and Accuracy of Unmanned Aerial Survey Imagery after Salvage Logging in Different Terrain Conditions

“…There are many possibilities and benefits in using UASs in forest ecosystem research. When there is a need to identify damaged sites, especially after climatic extremes or barkbeetle outbreaks, the use of UASs has shown to be crucial for the harvesting management of salvage logging or in more specific pre-harvest, post-harvest and post-disturbance inventories when timely and accurate data are needed [6]. Researchers highlight that the use of UASs, which performances are constantly improving, will eventually replace the need for people in the field, thus reducing the price and time for surveying and reducing risks, especially in damaged sites with high-risk control.…”

“…The main host of the spruce bark beetle is Norway spruce, the most common conifer of northern Europe and mountainous areas of central, southern and Western Europe [5]. Tomljanović et al [6] state that forest disturbances such as bark beetles, windstorms or snowstorms directly affect the regeneration, biodiversity and productivity of the stands.…”

An Innovative Approach to Surface Deformation Estimation in Forest Road and Trail Networks Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Real-Time Kinematic-Derived Data for Monitoring and Maintenance

“…Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been proven to be highly effective equipment for acquiring reliable data in forested areas, combining simplicity and less need for resources in terms of manpower, equipment, time, and cost [57]. This winning combination justifies the research that has been undertaken with regard to possible implementations of UAVs equipped with cameras and sensors in forest engineering.…”

“…UAV photogrammetry, which refers to the combination of a UAV with a Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensor, has advanced rapidly over the last decade, enabling three-dimensional modeling for the protection and management of natural ecosystems, among others [57]. LiDAR sensors have a high resolution and accuracy when measuring objects [66] and represent a promising technology for road maintenance in the near future [67].…”

Using YOLO Object Detection to Identify Hare and Roe Deer in Thermal Aerial Video Footage—Possible Future Applications in Real-Time Automatic Drone Surveillance and Wildlife Monitoring

“…The use of aerial drones for wildlife monitoring has increased exponentially in the past decade [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. These drones, also known as uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned aerial systems (UASs), and remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPASs), can carry a variety of sensors, including high-resolution visible-light-cameras (RGB) and thermal infrared (TI) cameras.…”