MULTISPECTRAL AERIAL IMAGES TO SUPPORT BIOTOPE INFORMATION SYSTEMS FOR MIDGE INFESTATION AND BARK BEETLE MONITORING

Abstract. Monitoring environmental phenomena with assistance of remotely captured data is increasingly important in environmental studies. The observation of midge infestation or bark beetles can be considered a non-direct approach to their environments or in some cases to their impact on the ecosystem. Multispectral or hyper spectral data captured by aircrafts or UAVs assist in the observation of such areas. We want to describe the technology of the sensors, the way to process the data, extract related areas and correlate those with the ground truth situation. The examples chosen are the midge infestation in the river Rhine ecosystem and the bark beetle invasion in a forest in Saxony in Germany. Special attention is put on the consequences of such extreme sprawls for the environment and the population close to these areas.