scholarly journals Remotely Sensed Water Limitation in Vegetation: Insights from an Experiment with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

Author(s):  
Kelly Easterday ◽  
Chippie Kislik ◽  
Tod E. Dawson ◽  
Sean Hogan ◽  
Maggi Kelly

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with multispectral sensors present an opportunity to monitor vegetation with on-demand high spatial and temporal resolution. In this study, we use multispectral imagery from quadcopter UAVs to monitor the progression of a water manipulation experiment on a common shrub, Baccharis pilularis (coyote brush), at the Blue Oak Ranch Reserve (BORR) near San Jose, California. We recorded multispectral data from the plants at several altitudes with nearly hourly intervals to explore the relationship between two common spectral indices, NDVI and NDRE, and plant water content and water potential, as physiological metrics of plant water status, across a gradient of water deficit. An examination of the spatial and temporal thresholds at which water limitations were most detectable revealed that the best separation between levels of water deficit were at higher resolution (lower flying height), and in the morning (NDVI) and early morning (NDRE). We found that both measures were able to identify moisture deficit in plants and distinguish them from control and watered plants; however, NDVI was better able to distinguish between treatments than NDRE and was more positively correlated with field measurements of plant water content than NDRE. Finally, we explored how relationships between spectral indices and water status changed when the imagery was scaled to courser resolutions provided by satellite-based imagery (PlanetScope) and found that PlanetScope data was able to capture the overall trend in treatments but was not able to capture subtle changes in water content. These kinds of experiments that evaluate the relationship between direct field measurements and UAV camera sensitivity are needed to enable translation of field-based physiology measurements to landscape or regional scales.

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (16) ◽  
pp. 1853 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly Easterday ◽  
Chippie Kislik ◽  
Todd Dawson ◽  
Sean Hogan ◽  
Maggi Kelly

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with multispectral sensors present an opportunity to monitor vegetation with on-demand high spatial and temporal resolution. In this study we use multispectral imagery from quadcopter UAVs to monitor the progression of a water manipulation experiment on a common shrub, Baccharis pilularis (coyote brush) at the Blue Oak Ranch Reserve (BORR) ~20 km east of San Jose, California. We recorded multispectral imagery at several altitudes with nearly hourly intervals to explore the relationship between two common spectral indices, NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index) and NDRE (normalized difference red edge index), leaf water content and water potential as physiological metrics of plant water status, across a gradient of water deficit. An examination of the spatial and temporal thresholds at which water limitations were most detectable revealed that the best separation between levels of water deficit were at higher resolution (lower flying height), and in the morning (NDVI) and early morning (NDRE). We found that both measures were able to identify moisture deficit across treatments; however, NDVI was better able to distinguish between treatments than NDRE and was more positively correlated with field measurements of leaf water content. Finally, we explored how relationships between spectral indices and water status changed when the imagery was scaled to courser resolutions provided by satellite-based imagery (PlanetScope).We found that PlanetScope data was able to capture the overall trend in treatments but unable to capture subtle changes in water content. These kinds of experiments that evaluate the relationship between direct field measurements and UAV camera sensitivity are needed to enable translation of field-based physiology measurements to landscape or regional scales.


2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Saraswati Prabawardani

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning /> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas /> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables /> <w:SnapToGridInCell /> <w:WrapTextWithPunct /> <w:UseAsianBreakRules /> <w:DontGrowAutofit /> <w:UseFELayout /> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <mce:style><! /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} --> <!--[endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">The measurement of plant water status such as leaf water potential (LWP) and leaf relative water content (RWC) is important part of understanding plant physiology and biomass production. Preliminary study was made to determine the optimum amount of leaf abrasion and equilibration time of sweet potato leaf inside the thermocouple psychrometer chambers. Based on the trial, the standard equilibration time curve of a Peltier thermocouple for sweet potato leaf was between 2 and 3 hours. To increase the water vapour conductance across the leaf epidermis the waxy leaf cuticle should be removed or broken by abrasion. The result showed that 4 times leaf rubbings was accepted as the most effective way to increase leaf vapour conductance of sweet potato in the psychrometer chambers. In calculating the leaf relative water content, unstressed water of sweet potato leaves require 4 hours imbibition, whereas water stressed of sweet potato leaves require 5 to 6 hours to reach the saturation time. Either leaf water potential or relative water content can be used as a parameter for plant water status in sweet potato.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Berríos ◽  
Abdelmalek Temnani ◽  
Susana Zapata ◽  
Manuel Forcén ◽  
Sandra Martínez-Pedreño ◽  
...  

&lt;p&gt;Mandarin is one of the most important Citrus cultivated in Spain and the sustainability of the crop is subject to a constant pressure for water resources among the productive sectors and to a high climatic demand conditions and low rainfall (about 250 mm per year). The availability of irrigation water in the Murcia Region is generally close to 3,500 m&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt; per ha and year, so it is only possible to satisfy 50 - 60% of the late mandarin ETc, which requires about 5,500 m&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt; per ha. For this reason, it is necessary to provide tools to farmers in order to control the water applied in each phenological phase without promoting levels of severe water stress to the crop that negatively affect the sustainability of farms located in semi-arid conditions. Stem water potential (SWP) is a plant water status indicator very sensitive to water deficit, although its measurement is manual, discontinuous and on a small-scale. &amp;#160;In this way, indicators measured on a larger scale are necessary to achieve integrating the water status of the crop throughout the farm. Thus, the aim of this study was to determine the sensitivity to water deficit of different hyperspectral single bands (HSB) and their relationship with the midday SWP in mandarin trees submitted to severe water stress in different phenological phases. Four different irrigation treatments were assessed: i) a control (CTL), irrigated at 100% of the ETc throughout the growing season to satisfy plant water requirements and three water stress treatments that were irrigated at 60% of ETc throughout the season &amp;#8211; corresponding to the real irrigation water availability &amp;#8211; except &amp;#160;during: ii) the end of phase I and beginning of phase II (IS IIa), iii) the first half of phase II (IS IIb) and iv) phase III of fruit growth (IS III), which irrigation was withheld until values of -1.8 MPa of SWP or a water stress integral of 60 MPa day&lt;sup&gt;-1&lt;/sup&gt;. When these threshold values were reached, the spectral reflectance values were measured between 350 and 2500 nm using a leaf level spectroradiometer to 20 mature and sunny leaves on 4 trees per treatment. Twenty-four HVI and HSB were calculated and a linear correlation was made between each of them with SWP, where the &amp;#961;940 and &amp;#961;1250 nm single bands reflectance presented r-Pearson values of -0.78** and -0.83***, respectively. Two linear regression curves fitting were made: SWP (MPa) = -11.05 &amp;#8729; &amp;#961;940 + 7.8014 (R&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; =0.61) and SWP (MPa) = -13.043 &amp;#8729; &amp;#961;1250 + 8.9757 (R&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; =0.69). These relationships were obtained with three different fruit diameters (35, 50 and 65 mm) and in a range between -0.7 and -1.6 MPa of SWP. Results obtained show the possibility of using these single bands in the detection of water stress in adult mandarin trees, and thus propose a sustainable and efficient irrigation scheduling by means of unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with sensors to carry out an automated control of the plant water status and with a suitable temporal and spatial scale to apply precision irrigation.&lt;/p&gt;


Author(s):  
Aya Hussein ◽  
Sondoss Elsawah ◽  
Hussein A. Abbass

Objective This work aims to further test the theory that trust mediates the interdependency between automation reliability and the rate of human reliance on automation. Background Human trust in automation has been the focus of many research studies. Theoretically, trust has been proposed to impact human reliance on automation by mediating the relationship between automation reliability and the rate of human reliance. Experimentally, however, the results are contradicting as some confirm the mediating role of trust, whereas others deny it. Hence, it is important to experimentally reinvestigate this role of trust and understand how the results should be interpreted in the light of existing theory. Method Thirty-two subjects supervised a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in foraging missions in which the swarm provided recommendations on whether or not to collect potential targets, based on the information sensed by the UAVs. By manipulating the reliability of the recommendations, we observed changes in participants’ trust and their behavioral responses. Results A within-subject mediation analysis revealed a significant mediation role of trust in the relationship between swarm reliability and reliance rate. High swarm reliability increased the rate of correct acceptances, but decreased the rate of correct rejections. No significant effect of reliability was found on response time. Conclusion Trust is not a mere by-product of the interaction; it possesses a predictive power to estimate the level of reliance on automation. Application The mediation role of trust confirms the significance of trust calibration in determining the appropriate level of reliance on swarm automation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 4144
Author(s):  
José Luis Gallardo-Salazar ◽  
Marín Pompa-García

Modern forestry poses new challenges that space technologies can solve thanks to the advent of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This study proposes a methodology to extract tree-level characteristics using UAVs in a spatially distributed area of pine trees on a regular basis. Analysis included different vegetation indices estimated with a high-resolution orthomosaic. Statistically reliable results were found through a three-phase workflow consisting of image acquisition, canopy analysis, and validation with field measurements. Of the 117 trees in the field, 112 (95%) were detected by the algorithm, while height, area, and crown diameter were underestimated by 1.78 m, 7.58 m2, and 1.21 m, respectively. Individual tree attributes obtained from the UAV, such as total height (H) and the crown diameter (CD), made it possible to generate good allometric equations to infer the basal diameter (BD) and diameter at breast height (DBH), with R2 of 0.76 and 0.79, respectively. Multispectral indices were useful as tree vigor parameters, although the normalized-difference vegetation index (NDVI) was highlighted as the best proxy to monitor the phytosanitary condition of the orchard. Spatial variation in individual tree productivity suggests the differential management of ramets. The consistency of the results allows for its application in the field, including the complementation of spectral information that can be generated; the increase in accuracy and efficiency poses a path to modern inventories. However, the limitation for its application in forests of more complex structures is identified; therefore, further research is recommended.


2017 ◽  
Vol 189 ◽  
pp. 137-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xun Wu ◽  
Wenjing Zhang ◽  
Wen Liu ◽  
Qiang Zuo ◽  
Jianchu Shi ◽  
...  

2012 ◽  
Vol 500 ◽  
pp. 149-154
Author(s):  
Shan Shan Wang ◽  
Xi Chen ◽  
Quan Wang ◽  
An Ming Bao

Many fundamental ecosystem properties and dynamics are monitored by plant water status, particularly in arid ecosystem where water is usually limiting. Although plant water status have been widely assessed using field measurements by ecological methods, approaches for remotely sensing plant water status are largely lacking, particularly diurnal water status. In arid ecosystem, WUE is a dynamic indicator for detecting water status, but also an integrated index for correlating to the plant photosynthesis. In our study, the experiments were conducted on native dominant desert shrub, Tamarix ramosissima, in their original habitats on the southern periphery of Gurbantonggut desert, China. We explored sensitive and useful hyperspectral indices for estimating diurnal WUE at a leaf scale based on diurnal measurements of hyperspectral reflectance, photosynthesis and micrometeorological variables. According to the statistical analysis of relationships between spectral indices and WUE estimation, SR type hyperspectral index is the sensitivity index for WUE estimation. Our results provide useful insights for monitoring desert shrubs diurnal and dynamic water status, using a wide range of available hyperspectral data.


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