Abstract

EASDALE, Marcos H et al. Complementing satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles for rangeland assessment in Patagonia. Ecol. austral [online]. 2019, vol.29, n.3, pp.306-314. ISSN 1667-782X.

Rangelands assessment in arid and semiarid regions is a key tool both for livestock management planning and environmental diagnoses. Even though there is a consensus on the utility of such tools, rangeland assessment with high detail (grain) while covering large areas or landscapes (extension) is too costly. Then, the compatibility between the resolution and quality of information and the spatial extent required to make decisions in livestock systems is still an operational challenge that has not found an effective solution. Thus, the use of satellite images for rangeland assessments in different environments has been growing steadily in the last two decades. The developments associated with the capture of images using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) would offer many advantages as a complement to information, since they increase the spatial resolution. The aim of this work was to classify rangeland environments using satellite and UAV images and compare their respective contributions for rangeland assessments in Patagonia. In particular, spatial resolution of an unsupervised classification of rangeland environments using SPOT 7 satellite images and images captured by an optical sensor mounted on an UAV were compared. Rangeland assessment can be potentiated by the use of different sources of information in a more complementary and accessible way for environmental monitoring, and for a pastoral management planning in highly heterogeneous environments from arid and semiarid regions of Patagonia, Argentina.

Keywords : Automation; Remote sensing; NDVI; UAV.

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