Evaluation of remote sensing approaches for plantation health surveillance
Evaluation of remote sensing approaches for plantation health surveillance
This project will compare a range of satellite and airborne remote sensing methods with traditional forest health assessment methods to evaluate their relative costs versus benefits in plantation health surveillance.
To compare a suite of satellite and airborne systems of differing sensor specifications with traditional aerial sketch mapping techniques, and evaluate their cost, accuracy and use in plantation health surveillance at both landscape and tree levels.
The University of South Australia will work collaboratively with:
Flinders University, NSW DPI, Green Triangle Forest Health Group, Maxar / Geospatial Intelligence, SKYLAB Aerial Vegetarian Mapping GmbH, Forest Corporation of NSW, HQPlantations, Hancock Victorian Plantations, Timberlands Pacific Pty Ltd, OneFortyOne, PF Olsen, AKD, Green Triangle Forest Products and SFM Environmental Solutions
The methodology below is designed to undertake an evaluation of a suite of leading-edge remote systems and associated data-flow analytics, including their effectiveness, benefits and relative costs compared to traditional approaches applied to plantation health surveillance. Both futuristic and current systems being evaluated by companies for other aspects of precision forestry are include (e.g. SkyLab and SkySat products). This collaborative, relatively large project has a national perspective with plantation growers in all states except Tasmania, WA and NT participating, providing access to multiple regions, climates and a range of damage symptoms. The project brings together researchers specialising in remote sensing and forest health to ensure that the appropriateness of scientific robustness but also for current and future plantation management systems.
Innovation
Detection and Response
Project participants will be provided with:
We anticipate the recommendations from this project will provide industry with confidence and understanding to make use of current and future remote sensing approaches in their plantation health surveillance programs.
(a) and (b) The general ground situation of green pine and PWD infected pine. (c) Needle growth situation corresponding to the black rectangles in (b); (d) and (e) The needle distribution of green pine and PWD infected pine
Two workshops: 1) hands-on training session for users of the FDI, and 2) discussion with industry representatives to develop adoption pathways for an operational system.