top of page
Aerial View of Lake

Drone - DJI Matrice 300

Each year, GBF staff and volunteers begin surveying the wetlands starting in June when invasive Phragmites are tall enough to be seen in aquatic ecosystems. Hundreds of kilometers of shoreline are mapped by boat and on foot, using last year’s map to follow-up on previous sites, but also searching for any new patches that may have been established. On average, the mapping process for the over-1,000 sites identified in southeastern Georgian Bay typically takes the entire month of June. Fieldwork always has its challenges, and when mapping Phragmites, one is often faced with varying water levels and weather conditions, soft and muddy substrate, dense cattail marshes, rough terrain, and rocky shorelines that make it difficult to access sites by boat or on foot. If further data could be collected regarding these sites, GBF could determine the best possible ways to access and manage them.

 

In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, have been increasingly popular, as they allow researchers to collect significant amounts of data with high resolution at a fair cost. Because of this, Georgian Bay Forever has acquired a drone to aid in the extensive surveying time and early-detection mapping. The DJI Matrice 300 RTK is equipped with the Micasense RedEdge-MX camera, allowing us to identify invasive Phragmites in Georgian Bay coastal wetlands from high resolution, multispectral imagery collected.

 

This is done through analyzing how vegetation interacts with light. All objects reflect, absorb, and transmit light differently, including light that is visible and non-visible to the human eye. Cameras and sensors have the ability to collect visible reflected light (red, green, blue) and non-visible (infrared, near infrared, red-edge…etc.). to capture images. Vegetation appears green to the human eye because it reflects a high amount of green light. What cannot be seen is the even higher amount of near infrared (NIR) light that is reflected. Healthy vegetation reflects high amounts of NIR and green light, while absorbing high amounts of blue and red. In addition, everything has its own unique chemical composition, and thus spectral signature. By using data and imagery collected in the various bands, GBF can process and analyze aerial wetland data to determine plant health, classify land cover, and distinguish between plant species.

​

- Nicole Carpenter, Science Projects Manager and head of invasive Phragmites management at GBF

How it Works

Drone: DJI Matrice 300
with RTK Ground Station

 

Sensor: Micasense
RedEdge-MX and DLS 2

​

 

2e12dd56f69aff6dc94f4e03ca2eee10.jpeg

Drones allow researchers to collect significant amounts of data from any given environment by scanning vast areas quickly using high resolution imagery.High-tech drones have become specifically useful in the field of geomatics. Drones have the ability to collect large amounts of accurate, geo-tagged data, optimizing the time spent on geo-surveying, so that we can spend more time working on invasive Phragmites stands, and less time mapping them.

​

We scan sites of invasive Phragmites to identify and map those areas for reference in our eradication efforts. Locations are recorded in decimal degrees (latitude and longitude), invasive lineage is confirmed, and the area of the patch is recorded using ESRI FieldMaps. Researchers walk the edge of the patch and use Field Maps to record their location, creating a polygon that can be used in future analysis for training the model to identify invasive Phragmites stands.

Watch a video here about our new mapping capabilities using the drone.

bottom of page