Use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in a multi-scale vegetation index study of Arctic plant communities in Adventdalen on Svalbard ...

• Main Authors: Tommervik, Hans, Karlsen, Stein-Rune, Nilsen, Lennart, Johansen, Bernt, Storvold, Rune, Zmarz, Anna, Becker, Pieter S., Johansen, Kjell-Sture, Hogda, Kjell-Arild, Goetz, Scott, Park, Tjaejin, Zagajewski, Bogdan, Myneni, Ranga B., Bjerk, Jarle W.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: EARSeL eProceedings 2014
• Subjects: Unmanned Aircraft Systems; UAS; NDVI; Adventdalen; Arctic; Norway; Svalbard; Tundra
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.12760/02-2014-1-09; http://eproceedings.org/vol13_S1/13_S1_tommervik1.html

Use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) gives the opportunity to carry out research with a reduced environmental footprint. Unmanned aircraft, including both fixed wing and multi rotor types (helicopters) allow us to collect very high resolution image data for vegetation mapping without the need for any personnel walking into the site and thereby potentially disturbing the sensitive Arctic ecosystems. The main aim of this project was to explore the feasibility of UAS-based vegetation mapping and extraction of vegetation indices (NDVI) for a range of different Arctic plant communities including dense marshes, moss tundra communities and different tundra heaths. The study area of Adventdalen valley on Svalbard, Arctic Norway, is located at 71.2 degree N 16 degree E and experiences a dry Arctic climate with a mean July temperature of about 6 degree C. The UAS was a fixed wing aircraft instrumented with a Red, Green, Blue (RGB) compact camera and a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) camera taking ...