Description

Monitoring is defined as the collection and analysis of repeated observations or measurements to evaluate changes in condition and progress toward meeting a management objective. One of the cornerstones in the management of protected areas is the establishment and the implementation of monitoring protocols for the values it is set to protect such as biodiversity including rare and threatened species, plant communities and their non-biotic environment.
The topic was initially designed to test the proposed methods in a mountainous area that ranks among the regions with the highest concentrations of endemic plants in Europe, the Lefka Ori (Samaria) UNESCO biosphere reserve in Crete, Greece. Due to travel restrictions, the National park of Drentsche Aa in the Netherlands is proposed as a contingency plan (https://www.drentscheaa.nl/).

Objectives and Methodology

Aim of the proposed topic is to assess the usefulness of drones in collecting effectively and efficiently qualitative and quantitative data required for the assessment of the conservation status of critical plant communities. It is hypothesised that high-resolution georeferenced imagery acquired with UAV can minimise laborious field data collection and increase quantity and quality of data from remote locations contributing to a repository of data of the state of the species populations and habitats. Research questions will assess the effect of species size and image spatial and temporal resolution in image classification accuracy.

Further reading

Müllerová, J., Bartaloš, T., Brůna, J., Dvořák, P., Vítková, M. (2017). Unmanned aircraft in nature conservation: an example from plant invasions. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 38 (8-10).
Räsänen, A., Virtanen, T., (2019). Data and resolution requirements in mapping vegetation in spatially heterogeneous landscapes. Remote Sensing of Environment, 230, art. no. 111207.