Nature Conservancy testing fly-over system that pinpoints species

The Nature Conservancy has started testing a remote sensing technology on Kaua’i that it says could be a major advance in the fight against invasive plant species in Hawai’i.

“I honestly think this could be the biggest technological breakthrough for weed management and monitoring in Hawai’i, or anywhere else, in the last decade,” said Trae Menard, the Nature Conservancy’s Kaua’i program manager, in a statement.

Under a contract with the conservancy, the firm Resource Mapping Hawai’i has developed imaging technologies that will allow conservation officials to sit at computer screens and recognize the major weeds in their areas from images taken from a plane instead of having to hike over all that terrain.

The system uses natural light and multi-spectral imaging, and can highlight Australian tree fern, miconia or strawberry guava plants and other weeds in a remote forested area.

On a clear day, the images are so detailed that individual leaves on some trees can be identified, the conservancy said. The system has a three-dimensional capability that calculates the heights of individual plants. Multispectral sensing allows a computer to search the images for specific kinds of plants. The cost is a few dollars per acre over large areas, officials say.

The conservancy, using private funds as well as state and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service money, has allocated $400,000 for a pilot project to map 80,000 acres of Kaua’i forested land that it oversees as coordinator of the Kaua’i Watershed Alliance.

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(Source: Honolulu Advertiser)