This summer our PhD student Elio Rauth, supported by our PhD student Antonio Castañeda and under the supervision of Dr. Mirjana Bevanda in cooperation with Prof. Larissa Beumer and Prof. Simone Lang conducted field work in Svalbard to investigate snow-vegetation interaction in the Arctic.
The UAS team conducted three weeks of field work in the Arctic during the midnight sun. Beside conducting field work in Svalbard to collect data for analysing snow-vegetation interactions in the Arctic. The team used drones with LiDAR, oblique, and multispectral sensors to create high-resolution elevation models, multispectral landscape maps and orthomosaics. The data will be used to map the small-scale vegetation and snow accumulation patterns for linking it to the species-environment and vegetation research conducted by our collaborators. During the field work, the team also collected ground truth data from vegetation plots, for which they analyzed plant species composition and measured soil moisture and temperature. They learned a lot about the flora of Svalbard, polar bear safety, and how to plan drone flights in often unpredictable Arctic weather conditions.
