Harnessing commercial satellite technologies to monitor our forests

Brian R. Johnson; Joseph McGlinchy; Megan Cattau; Maxwell Joseph; Victoria Scholl

doi:10.1117/12.2321648

18 September 2018 Harnessing commercial satellite technologies to monitor our forests

Brian R. Johnson, Joseph McGlinchy, Megan Cattau, Maxwell Joseph, Victoria Scholl

Proceedings Volume 10767, Remote Sensing and Modeling of Ecosystems for Sustainability XV; 1076702 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2321648
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2018, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

We are seeing tree mortality increase in western U.S. forests and die-off events around the world caused by serve or interacting disturbances like logging, drought, wildfire and pine beetle infestation. Limiting our knowledge of how forests respond is a lack of data on functional vegetation states at the tree or stand level over long periods of time and broad regions. Moderate resolution satellite imagery can provide changes in percent forest cover but cannot resolve vegetation state changes (e.g. from conifer to deciduous forest). The high resolution of Planet’s Dove imaging technologies may provide an opportunity to capture response at fine scales. We aim to integrate Planet’s constellation of satellites with Landsat imagery to create a multi-scale network for forest monitoring. However, the uncalibrated nature of these systems and the variability of sensor characteristics across the constellation make this problematic. We conducted a limited investigation of radiometric and thematic data methods for linking vegetation properties across spatial scales from 3 to 30 meters. The greatest challenge arises from the variation in Dove sensor radiometric response (roughly +/- 10%) across the constellation and optical cross talk associated with their broad, overlapping Bayer filter response. Applying a spectral band adjustment factor to improve radiometric correlation requires knowledge of the actual spectral response of the sensors which is not readily available. Using a K-means clustering algorithm to bridge scales and minimize sensor differences had mixed results for low reflectance scene components – perhaps again the result of cross-talk between Dove sensor spectral bands.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Brian R. Johnson, Joseph McGlinchy, Megan Cattau, Maxwell Joseph, and Victoria Scholl "Harnessing commercial satellite technologies to monitor our forests", Proc. SPIE 10767, Remote Sensing and Modeling of Ecosystems for Sustainability XV, 1076702 (18 September 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2321648

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