“The combined use of information obtained from images provided by the European Copernicus Earth Observation Satellite Programme and drones is effective in the early detention of forest pests, especially pinewood nematode”, according to the early European project LOTUS, the university says in a note sent to Lusa.

“In large forest territory it is extremely difficult and costly to detect the presence of diseased trees using traditional methods,” said Vasco Mantas, a researcher at the FCUT Department of Earth Sciences and the Study’s coordinator. “With our systems, the goal is precisely to detect the infected trees that are in these more complex contexts in detail, to allow forest users to go to the right places to carry out removal actions (felling), preventing them from the problem spreading”, explains Vasco Mantas, quoted by FCTUC.

The goal of the project, which began a year ago, is to contribute to “an operational and affordable service developed in a previous project (Silvisense) that monitors the entire forest territory and provides information to end users who are also participating in this project”, says the investigator.

Project participants include “forest producer associations, forest-related research centres such as SerQ, and sector industries”, as well as partners from Norway (S&T) and Belgium (VITO).

Although FOCUS is intended to cover various forest disturbances, the case study at present is the detection of trees affected by pine wood nematode (pine wilting disease), a complex problem with high economic impact in the affected regions.

Moreover, the project coordinator explains, "By detecting the nematode, as early results show, it will be possible to detect other diseases with similar symptoms."

The great added value of these innovative technologies that researchers are developing using drones and satellites is, first of all, the large areas of forest they can monitor.

The option of combining satellite and drone data in this project, coupled with a strong fieldwork component, is advantageous because “while satellite data gives a more global view, the information obtained through drones is interesting for very detailed cartography of the affected areas”, emphasizes the FOCUS coordinator.