The New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation (NYSDEC)
recently launched its use of drones for
things like monitoring coastal erosion on Lake Ontario, exploration
of bat caves in Mineville, restoration of beach dunes on Fire Island,
and monitoring Southern pine beetle in pine stands on Long Island.
There are few known instances of drone use in the urban forests
of New York; it's thought that this is because people are worried
about safety and uncertain about the potentially prohibitive laws
at work in populous areas.
However,
Joseph Charap has begun using drones in Green-Wood
Cemetery in Brooklyn with the help of his colleague, Vice President
of Operations, Eric Barna. (Charap is Green-Wood's Director of
Horticulture and Curator.) Their first use of Barna's Phantom 3
drone was to get aerial imagery of a veteran red oak (Quercus
rubra) tree at Green-Wood that Charap suspected might be infect-
ed with oak wilt.
"The drone images were an essential step in the diagnostic pro-
cess," Charap says. "They served to provide info to NYSDEC who
could then see that further diagnostics were warranted." On-the-
ground sampling and diagnosis by DEC confirmed that the tree
was infected with the dreaded oak wilt, which set into motion
containment efforts by NYC Parks in collaboration with Charap and
NYSDEC. "The aerial photos also gave DEC a look at how oak wilt
may manifest elsewhere in Brooklyn," Charap adds.
Next up, Charap would like to explore using drones for aerial veg-
etation mapping. "To complement our ground level work, we'd like
to have an aerial macro-perspective on our acres of vegetation,
to gain insight into how different plant material grows in different
areas," Charap says. "Drone imaging and analysis may provide
a more holistic impression. For instance, imagine looking at turf
from that aerial perspective and seeing and analyzing patterns
and changes that occur over time, including the effects of climate
change."
Drones will be useful for mapping. "I think that's the next frontier
for drones—combining mapping and forest health assessment
functions," Charap says. "We're game to experiment with that here.
And even that may just be the tip of the iceberg in terms of poten-
tial uses of drone technology in an urban arboretum setting."
A Drone Flies in Brooklyn … and
Assists with Oak Wilt Diagnosis
by Michelle Sutton, Editor, City Trees
A drone's aerial perspective on a red oak (Quercus rubra),
infected with oak wilt, in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery.
Photo Courtesy Green-Wood Cemetery
Michelle Sutton has
been Editor of City
Trees since 2005.
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