TECH

European project uses drones and satellites to detect forest pests

"The combined use of information obtained from images provided by the European Copernicus earth observing satellites program and by drones is effective in the early detection of forest pests, especially the pine wood nematode," according to early project results FOCUS, says the FCTUC, in a note sent to Lusa today.
With funding of € 1.9 million from the European Union through the Horizon 2020 program, the FOCUS (Forest Operational Monitoring using Copernicus and UAV hyperSpectral data) project, involving teams from the departments of Earth Sciences, Life Sciences and Engineering FCTUC, focuses on the development of "innovative methods for remote sensing and monitoring by satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles" of forest pests and diseases.
"In large forest areas, it is extremely difficult and expensive to detect the presence of diseased trees through traditional methods," says Vasco Mantas, a researcher at the FCTUC's Department of Earth Sciences and coordinator of the study.
"With our systems, the goal is precisely to detect the infected trees that are in these more complex contexts, in a detailed way, to allow the forest users to go to the correct places to do the removal actions (tree felling), avoiding that the problem has spread, "explains Vasco Mantas, quoted by FCTUC.
The final objective of the project, initiated a year ago, is to contribute to "an operational and accessible service, developed in an earlier project (Silvisense), that monitors the entire forest territory and provides information to end users who also participate in this project." says the researcher.
Participants in the project include "forest producer associations, forest-related research centers such as SerQ and industry", as well as partners from Norway (S & T) and Belgium (VITO).
Although FOCUS intends to cover several disturbances of the forest, the case study is currently the detection of trees affected by pine wood nematode (pine wilt disease), a complex problem with a high economic impact in the affected regions.
In addition, explains the project coordinator, "by detecting the nematode, as the first results demonstrate, it will be possible to detect other diseases with similar symptoms."
The great added value of these innovative technologies that researchers are developing using drones and satellites is, of course, the large patches of forest they can monitor. "In a much faster way, and with much lower costs, compared to conventional methods, we were able to have a map of the affected trees that would otherwise have to be made on the ground, with a high expenditure of hours, human and material resources, etc., exemplifies Vasco Mantas.
With this detailed spatial information, it is also possible, on the other hand, an analysis of the distribution, that is, to evaluate which are the processes that govern the distribution of the nematode and the insect vector.
The option of combining satellite and drone data in this project, coupled with a strong fieldwork component, is advantageous because "while data from satellites give a more global view, the information obtained through the drones is interesting for the very detailed cartography of the affected areas ", emphasizes the coordinator of FOCUS. Lusa Agency