Airborne and embark remote sensing for vegetation monitoring

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The objective of this discovery grant is to monitor and characterize vegetation cover by using active, passive and thermal airborne and ground mobile embark remote sensing sensors.The remote sensing sensors will be used to monitor vegetation phenology, growth, pest and vigor (water stress) as well as to detect environmental stress and generate morphological 3D model.During the past 5 years we have developed a fluorescence sensor (we have received and innovation award from NSERC) as well as a multisensor integrated image processing system for airborne image acquisition. In the short term the objective is to have a better understanding of the optical proprieties of the vegetation cover by using a multi-sensors approach at different scale; in the mid-term we will invest and contribute on the data acquisition and processing methods base on the combination of active and passive sensors as well as thermal and fluorescence sensors; and finally on the long term we will achieve the adaptation and development of operational methods and tools to support the use of multi-sensors airborne and embark remote sensing plateform to monitor vegetation cover.The specific objectives are:1) Evaluate different methodology to acquire remote sensing data representing the spectral absorption and reflectance as well as the thermal proprieties of a vegetation cover; 2) The second objective is to develop and adapt multi-sensors data fusion and integration methods to extract optical, thermal and spectral information correlated with vegetation stresses (nutrient and water stresses) at different spatial scales. In particular, thesemethods will involve the use of computer models and algorithms to address three types of problem: (i) the interpretation of the fluorescence, reflectance and thermal signature in relation to the vegetation stresses; (ii) the interpretation of thermal and multispectral reflectance data for the characterization of water stress; 3) The third objective is to propose operational methods to use thermal and passive remote sensing technologies incombination with LIDAR for the monitoring and the characterization of the vegetation status and vigor in relation to the morphometry and the phenology.