Drone-Based Forest Variables Mapping of ICOS Tower Surroundings

摘要

The development of drone technology has been rapid in the last decade, providing highly competent and economical platforms for applied remote sensing. Mapping forest using drones is not an economical alternative for most operational applications in forestry and environmental monitoring, due to the limited area covered. However, the potential of drone-based remote sensing is expected to be very large in research applications. In this study, a standard, small, four-rotor drone is used as platform for a multispectral camera to accurately collect 3D-data about the forest canopy, data used to produce maps of forest variables. These maps proved to be very valuable input for development of new models for the exchange of green-house gases in boreal and hemi-boreal forests. The task was performed within the ICOS initiative at three sites in Sweden where each has a 150 m high tower monitoring green-house gas fluxes at many levels in the atmosphere.