Monitoring the Vegetation Coverage Rate of Small Artificial Wetland Using Radio Controlled Helicopter

무선조종 헬리콥터를 이용한 소규모 인공 습지의 식생피복율 변화 모니터링

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the applicability of small RC(radio controlled) helicopter and single lens reflect camera as SFAP(Small Format Aerial Photography) aquisition system to monitor the vegetation coverage of wetland. The system used to take pictures of small artificial wetland were a common optical camera(Nikon F80 with manual lens whose focal length was 28mm) attached to the bottom of a RC helicopter with a 50 cubic inch size glow engine. Three hundreds pictures were taken at the altitude of 50m above the ground, from 23rd June to 7th September 2005. Four from the images were selected and scanned to digital images whose dimension were 2048${\times}$1357 pixels. Those images were processed and rectified with GCP(Ground Control Poins) and digital map, and then classified by the supervised- classification module of image processing program PG-steamer Version 2.2. The major findings were as follows ; 1. The final images processed had very high spatial resolution so that the objects bigger than 30mm like lotus(Nelumbo nucifera), rock and deck were easily identified. 2. The dominant plants of the monitoring site were Monochoria ragianlis, Typha latifolia, Beckmannia syzigachne etc. Because those species have narrow and long leaves and form irregular biomass, the individuals were hardly identifiable, but the distribution of population were easily identifiable depending on the color difference. 3. The area covered by vegetation was rapidly increased during the first month of monitoring. At the beginning of the monitoring 23th June 2005, The rate of area covered by vegetation were only 34%, but after 27 and 60 days it increased to 74%, and the 86% respectively.