Imaging – ArborCarbon https://arborcarbon.com.au ArborCarbon are experts in sustainable vegetation management solutions and urban forest monitoring Sat, 26 Oct 2019 02:57:47 +0000 en-AU hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.6.1 ArborCarbon is part of the ARC Training Centre for CubeSats, UAVs, and Their Applications arborcarbon-is-part-of-the-arc-training-centre-for-cubesats-uavs-and-their-applications/ Wed, 01 Nov 2017 14:09:06 +0000 http://arborcarbon.com.au/blog/?p=1329 ArborCarbon is excited to be a partner in the new ARC Training Centre for CubeSats, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and their Applications. The recently announced Centre aims to develop a world-class Australian expertise in the research and development, manufacturing and commercial application of both CubeSats (small satellites weighing only a few kilograms), and cutting-edge drones equipped with a range of advanced sensors.

These technologies have a wide range of applications, including remote sensing for agricultural and forestry purposes. The Centre will provide exciting opportunities for PhD students to work with ArborCarbon in this area. For more information, please click here, or contact Paul Barber at ArborCarbon.

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Resilient South – ArborCarbon resilient-south-arborcarbon/ Thu, 25 Aug 2016 09:36:01 +0000 http://arborcarbon.com.au/blog/?p=1081 This article in The Advertiser features some work conducted by ArborCarbon and partners in  a  lighthouse regional project for a consortium of four Local Government agencies and the South Australian Government called Resilient South.

ArborCarbon was engaged to use satellite and high-resolution airborne multispectral and thermal infrared imagery for the purpose of identifying cool and heat islands throughout the urban areas and investigate the relationship with vegetation and tree canopy cover.

Resilient South, a very exciting award winning project is “an initiative of the cities of Holdfast Bay, Marion, Mitcham and Onkaparinga [a region south of Adelaide], the Resilient South project is about what we can do in the Southern Region to make sure our businesses, communities, and environments can tackle the challenges of climate change.”

Changes in our climate, such as higher temperatures, declining rainfall, and rising sea levels require active management of risks.  The Resilient South project will also seek to harness opportunities presented by these changes, so that the region continues to thrive and prosper.

The Resilient South project is supported by the South Australian and Australian Governments. The project has entered its implementation phase after producing a Climate Change Adaptation Plan for the whole region, with input from government, business and community organisations.”

ArborCarbon’s Dr Paul Barber was invited to speak about heat mapping and the work they conducted at a Resilient South Showcase event attended by the South Australian Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation and Climate Change, the Hon. Ian Hunter at Flinders University of South Australian in Adelaide on the Wednesday 15th June 2016.

Speaking at the Resilient South Showcase, the South Australian Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation Minister for Water and the River Murray Minister for Climate Change

South Australian Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Conservation, Water, the River Murray and Climate Change speaking at the Resilient South Showcase.

Dr Barber was also interviewed about the project by Ian Henschke on ABC Drive Adelaide after the event.  Listen to the interview;

 

Newsletters and Press Releases about the Resilient South project can be found here .  Note the January 2016 newsletter about Heat Mapping, Cooling.

The South Australian State Government has committed to the global RegionsAdapt initiative, “a new global commitment to support and report efforts on adaptation at the state and regional level”.

To download a PDF of ‘The heat is on, on the street newspaper’ article at the top of the page click here .

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Trees cut heat on city’s streets – City of Perth trees-cut-heat-on-citys-streets-city-of-perth/ Wed, 08 Jun 2016 10:05:04 +0000 http://arborcarbon.com.au/blog/?p=1045 “Experts have long known that the canopy provided by trees can affect temperatures.

The thermal imaging results, which are in the City of Perth’s draft urban forest plan, put a figure on the reality of that relationship.”

Fantastic to see the City of Perth  communicating  the linkage between tree canopy and heat.

The work provided in this article,  is the result of a precision urban forest monitoring project carried out by ArborCarbon and partners in early 2015.

It is essential that we use this type of high-resolution imagery for  precision baseline measurement and monitoring  to achieve realistic targets and sustainable urban forest management.

See article in today’s West Australian by Kate Emery here.

Victoria Avenue is much cooler than treeless streets Picture – Bill Hatto -The West Australian

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Cubert and VITO Remote Sensing introduced compact hyperspectral COSI-cam at EGU 2016 cubert-and-vito-remote-sensing-introduced-compact-hyperspectral-cosi-cam-at-egu-2016/ Mon, 09 May 2016 14:38:29 +0000 http://arborcarbon.com.au/blog/?p=948  

“Last week during the the European Geosciences Union – General Assembly 2016 (EGU 2016), Cubert, a German hyperspectral camera manufacturer, and VITO introduced the COSI Cam, a high ground resolution hyperspectral mapper.”

See article published on VITO  by Delaur’e Bavo

ArborCarbon in Perth, Western Australian are  distributors for Cubert in Australia and New Zealand.

 

 

 

 

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Drones with Multispectral Cameras Bring Efficiency to High-Throughput Plant Phenotyping drones-with-multispectral-cameras-bring-efficiency-to-high-throughput-plant-phenotyping/ Mon, 09 May 2016 07:47:52 +0000 http://arborcarbon.com.au/blog/?p=940 An excellent article by BioPhotonics  James Schlett, discussing the applications and challenges associated with UAV/UAS mounted hyperspectral imaging, with valuable input from our partner Igno Breukers at Quest Innovations .

“Drone-supported multispectral imaging can help break the ‘phenotyping bottleneck’ and enable plant breeders to grow the most drought-tolerant, disease-resistant and highest-yielding genetically enhanced crops. However, shortcomings in aerial multispectral imaging technology must be overcome before it can help breeders grow the perfect plant.”

Read article

Information about the Quest Innovation  Hyperea42 4-2016

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Unmanned Airborne Systems (UAS) or ‘Drones’ – are they the answer for precision vegetation monitoring? unmanned-airborne-systems-uas-or-drones-for-precision-monitoring-of-vegetation/ Sun, 03 Apr 2016 07:59:43 +0000 http://arborcarbon.com.au/blog/?p=715 Unmanned Airborne Systems (UAS), Unmanned Airborne Vehicles (UAV), or Drones as commonly referred to, have captured the imagination of people. Their potential applications are almost endless, but are they the most appropriate platform for collection of airborne imagery on vegetation cover and condition.

Screen Shot 2016-04-03 at 3.10.26 pm

Change detection multispectral imagery at 1m pixel resolution acquired from fixed-wing plane. Inset: 1cm true colour imagery acquired using an UAS.

ArborCarbon scientists have been conducting research on the applications of satellite and airborne multi and hyperspectral imagery for more than 10 years. The variety of platforms carrying the sensing device (e.g. camera) include satellite, fixed-wing plane, helicopter and UAS. The range of sensors attached to these platforms include multispectral and hyperspectral imaging devices. ArborCarbon scientists first started using UAS in projects for capturing airborne imagery over vegetation monitoring sites in 2010 and were the first company in the world to do so for vegetation monitoring to determine the potential impacts of groundwater drawdown and alteration of sheet flow on mulga and riparian communities in Australia.

We are very selective about using UAS platforms for the capture of airborne imagery to measure and monitor vegetation cover and condition, including in precision agriculture and measurement of NDVI, as we have a close understanding of all the factors that affect these measurements. The arrival of many new ‘drone’ platforms and cheap multispectral cameras onto the market has certainly raised the profile of remote sensing and its potential application for precision vegetation management. However, there are many times when there are greater costs associated with acquiring data using these platforms due to mobilisation, limitations on battery life, and processing time.

We encourage anybody looking to use remote sensing for precision vegetation monitoring, whether that be for trees, horticulture, agriculture or turf, to carefully consider the range of platforms and sensors available, and discuss these with people who have an unbiased view.

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What is Tomnod? what-is-tomnod/ Sun, 27 Mar 2016 03:16:16 +0000 http://arborcarbon.com.au/blog/?p=654 Tomnod (the Mongolian word for “Big Eye”) is a crowdsourcing platform run by commercial satellite company DigitalGlobe that combines the powers of crowdsourcing and timely satellite imagery. It enables volunteers to identify objects of interest in satellite images, typically for response and recovery efforts after disasters.

The crowdsourcing platform allows volunteers to comb through imagery captured by DigitalGlobe’s constellation of satellites and “tag” areas of interest that are suspicious or require further study. An algorithm is then used to tally up these “tags” and flag areas that consistently attract attention.

 

Examples of Previous Tomnod Campaigns

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370

Just hours after the disappearance of Flight MH370 and its 239 passengers while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, DigitalGlobe repositioned two of their five satellites over the Gulf of Thailand region – the last known location of the aircraft.

Tomnad then launched a campaign to allow volunteers to scan and tag satellite images of the search area. The virtual search party were given directions to tag any hints of airplane wreckage, life rafts, oil slicks or anything interesting or suspicious

Over 8 million joined Flight MH370 campaign on the Tomnod platform, tagging millions of possible clues spanning 1,007,750 square kilometres of high resolution satellite imagery (DigitalGlobe, 2014).

 

Sampson Flat Bushfire, Adelaide

Within 12 hours of The Sampson Flat bushfire which started on Friday 2nd January 2015 in the Adelaide Hills, two satellites were making regular passes over the area and providing detailed photographs of the fire ground.

Tomnod then launched a crowd sourcing campaign to enable volunteers to help identify burnt buildings, damaged roads etc. More than 3,500 users from around the world began pinpointing buildings destroyed by the bushfires days before damage assessors could access the site. Volunteers were able to match a pre-fire map with the latest satellite images and determine areas where buildings had been destroyed or badly damaged. Online maps were also created to plot the growing footprint of the bushfire and display ready reserves of people willing to help during the fires.

Overview of Worldview-2 RGB satellite imagery acquired on the 4th (Copyright DigitalGlobe)

 

Hawaii Forests

In partnership with Hawaii’s Nature Conservancy, Tomnod launched a crowdsourcing campaign to help preserve Hawaii’s remaining native forests which were becoming threatened by invasive plants that were aggressively spreading throughout. In fact, these invasive species had contributed to the destruction of more than 50 percent of Hawaii’s native forests, according to The Nature Conservancy.

The campaign targeted two invasive plants: the Australian tree fern and the African tulip tree.

Tomnod figure 2 & 3

 

The project allowed volunteers to pinpoint the location of each weed for The Nature Conservancy to focus its efforts on and curb the spread of these plants.

Tomnod’s crowdsourcing platform has been involved in the response and recovery efforts for numerous natural and man-made disasters, but this was the first campaign launched specifically for environmental conservations efforts.

How to use Tomnod

To become a part of this invisible army, just visit the Tomnod website. Click through the introductory text and press Start Tagging! on the Tomnod screen to start your search.

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Concern at canopy loss – SAS’s Seaward Village concern-at-canopy-loss-sas-seaward-village/ Thu, 10 Mar 2016 05:25:36 +0000 http://arborcarbon.com.au/blog/?p=745 ArborCarbon’s Managing Director and Chief Scientist, Dr Paul Barber was asked by the Western Suburbs Weekly, to comment and provide data on the canopy cover of the suburb of  Swanbourne, amid fears that the area is losing too much canopy cover.

“CALCULATIONS show that redeveloping the SAS’s Seaward Village in Swanbourne could mean the loss of 25,000sq m of cooling tree canopy, in addition to an estimated 12ha lost in the City of Nedlands recently.

“You’re certainly going to lose tree canopy if you bowl it all over – about that there’s no doubt,” Arbor Carbon director and Murdoch University associate professor Paul Barber said.”

Read the full article 

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