Title:

Unmanned Aerial Systems as a Tool for Investigating Edge Influences in New Hampshire Forests

Increasing development due to a growing global population has led to further fragmentation of our forests. Development not only directly removes forest from the landscape but degrades the quality of the remaining forest patches along their edges. Edge habitat are less suitable for many species of plants and animals that once resided in and/or relied on the non-degraded interior forest, making the remaining forest patch smaller for their habitat needs. To conserve non-degraded forests and develop management strategies that mitigate the effects of future fragmentation, we must know the depth of edge influence (DEI), or how far into a forest these degradative influences extend, so patch quality on the landscape can be spatially modeled. DEI is highly variable, however, changing with local and landscape level factors. Understanding the impact of these factors through fieldwork would not be cost effective, but unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are now a source of very high spatial resolution information on forest structure, commonly used to measure DEI. Because it can be deployed on demand and capture very high spatial resolution imagery at a fraction of the cost of satellites and manned aircrafts, UAS may serve as an efficient and effective method for understanding the changes occurring at the forest edges. This study focuses on assessing UAS as a tool for detecting and measuring DEI under varying conditions. Forest structure is measured on the ground and estimated from UAS imagery at several sites, differing in terms of composition and orientation. The relationship between distance from a forest edge and forest structure measured via both methods are assessed and then compared to determine whether there are significant differences between them. If not significant, UAS can serve as an effective substitute to field work and cover much more area in a fraction of the time of field work.

Name

Comment*

Comments are viewable only by submitter

Captcha*