M.Sc. handed in on UAV-based monitoring of post-disturbed forest sites.

M.Sc. handed in on UAV-based monitoring of post-disturbed forest sites.

March 22, 2017

The M.Sc thesis by Marius Röder (Hochschule für Technik Stuttgart) was handed in. The thesis was supervised by Dr. Hooman Latifi and Prof. Eberhard Gülch and focuses on monitoring post-disturbed and heterogenuous forest sites by cost-effective methods from Unmaned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) domain. The advantage of normalized digital surface models extracted from UAV dta was initially compared to the products derived from standard aerial photography. Subsequently, the suitability of UAV-based inventory was compared to traditional eld methods . For this purpose, reference and UAV data were compared in terms of quality, quantity and cost eectiveness. In addition, an algorithm for automatic tree detection was compared to the manual detection on the UAV-imagery. The extent to which the results differ for certain forest heterogeneity as well as for single and grouped tree individuals was addressed., followed by a cost and benefit analysis of UAV-based forest inventory compared to traditional field-based methods.

 

UAV-based point cloud (left) and UAV-based nDSM (right) of an examplified sample plot in Bavarian Forest National Park

 

the results showed that the UAV inventory can not fully replace the eld methods in terms of quality and quantity due to the general disadvantages of photogrammetric methods in the small-scale forest sites consisting of dense rejuvenation stocks. However, from a purely economic point of view, the advantages over the eld method predominate. Improvements could be achieved by combining field and UAV-methods or a simulteanous use of digital camera and laser scanner mounted on UAV.

you may also like:

Successful PhD defense by Nina Haug

Successful PhD defense by Nina Haug

We congratulate Nina Haug from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) (Department of Architecture, Institute for Urban and Landscape Design, Chair of Urban Housing and Development) on her successful defense of her PhD thesis. The thesis is titled...

InnoLab presentations by Jean de Dieu Tuyizere and Gökçe Budak

InnoLab presentations by Jean de Dieu Tuyizere and Gökçe Budak

On Tuesday, the 15th of July, two InnoLab projects of our EAGLE students have been presented at our Earth Observation Research Cluster:   Jean de Dieu Tuyizere presented his topic titled "Building an Earth Observation Data Cube for Volcanoes National Park,...

Exciting Milestone: Submission of Doctoral Theses

Exciting Milestone: Submission of Doctoral Theses

We warmly congratulate Ariane Droin and Dorothee Stiller on submitting their doctoral theses today! This milestone reflects their dedication and hard scientific work over the past years. Ariane’s research focuses on using pedestrian networks to analyze individuals'...

EO4CAM meeting at LfU in Augsburg on grassland in Bavaria

EO4CAM meeting at LfU in Augsburg on grassland in Bavaria

As part of the EO4CAM project (Earth Observation Laboratory for Climate Adaption and Mitigation), representatives of the Bavarian Environment Agency (LfU), the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), and the Earth Observation Research Cluster (EORC) met at the LfU in...

Strengthening Scientific Networks in Côte d’Ivoire

Strengthening Scientific Networks in Côte d’Ivoire

Last week, two of our EORC members (Dr. Insa Otte and Dr. Michael Thiel) had the opportunity to visit several research institutions in Côte d’Ivoire—both in Abidjan and at the Lamto Ecological Research Station. During this visit, they gained valuable insights into the...