Remote sensing is set to become an everyday tool for forest managers following recent successful trials of new remote sensing technologies commissioned by Ensis.
Undertaken by Forestry Plantations Queensland the trials aimed to find alternatives to help improve the productivity of current crops and those next in rotation. The trials have not only produced numerous operational benefits but also delivered significant economic benefits.
The first of the technologies is the airborne LIDAR (light detection and ranging) and digital multi-spectral camera technologies. Mounted in aircraft, these devices have been used to capture a wide range of landscape and inventory data related to the araucaria (hoop pine) and exotic pine plantations in Queensland’s Mary Valley and Fraser Coast areas.
With relative ease and at low cost relative to direct measurement approaches, the technology provides information on topography, watercourses, canopy height and density and stand stocking.
Forestry Plantations Queensland’s senior silvicultural officer Ken Bubb explains that conventional surveying costs of $300 per hectare have been slashed to just $3 per hectare.
“Apart from enormous cost savings, we get the benefit of the LIDAR data being immediately usable,” Mr Bubb says “That data is to a very high level of resolution which means it can be used with other spatial datasets.”
The use of LIDAR technology is ongoing with Forestry Plantations Queensland now moving its operational focus from plantations in the state’s south-east to those in the far north. The data from a few hours flying time replaces thousands of hours undertaken by field staff traversing at times difficult and extensive terrain. In the future, on screen 3-D forest simulations using LIDAR data will enable forest managers to better plan inventories and harvesting operations and accurately map roads, fire trails and watercourses.
More recently, an 18-month project has been completed to assess the usefulness of hyperspectral satellite imagery in surveying foliar nutrition in the Fraser Coast area. The study, using data from NASA’s Earth Observer satellite, demonstrated that the concentration of certain nutrients in plantation pine trees can be remotely mapped.
Ensis remote sensing research scientist, Dr Neil Sims, says the maps will ultimately enable foresters to determine which fertilisers to apply and where.
“This will help them to exercise greater control over what can be a costly and time consuming forestry management function,” Dr Sims says. “The nutrient mapping project marks a further step towards remote sensing becoming a strategic tool in forestry management.”
Ensis is the forestry research joint venture between Australia’s CSIRO and New Zealand’s Scion.
Further Information:
Neil Sims
Ensis, Forests and Environment
+61 (03) 9545 2163