Estimating Soil Displacement from Timber Extraction Trails in Steep Terrain: Application of an Unmanned Aircraft for 3D Modelling

Abstract

Skid trails constructed for timber extraction in steep terrain constitute a serious environmental concern if not well planned, executed and ameliorated. Carrying out post-harvest surveys in monitoring constructed trails in such terrain is an onerous task for forest administrators, as hundreds of meters need to be surveyed per site, and the quantification of parameters and volumes is largely based on assumptions of trail symmetry and terrain uniformity. In this study, aerial imagery captured from a multi-rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle was used in generating a detailed post-harvest terrain model which included all skid trails. This was then compared with an Airborne Laser Scanning derived pre-harvest terrain model and the dimensions, slopes and cut-and-fill volumes associated with the skid trails were determined. The overall skid trail length was 954 m, or 381 m·ha −1 with segments varying from 40-60 m, inclinations from 3.9% to 9.6%, and cut volumes, from 1.7 to 3.7 m 3 per running meter. The methods used in this work can be used in rapidly assessing the extent of disturbance and erosion risk on a wide range of sites. The multi-rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) was found to be highly suited to the task, given the relatively small size of harvested stands, their shape and their location in the mountainous terrain.

Estimating machine impact on strip roads via close-range photogrammetry and soil parameters: a case study in central Italy

“…The use of a consumer reflex camera combined with the use of SfM software, however, can produce accuracy models at low cost, with respect to the use of TLS. The use of this methodology (Pierzchala et al 2014, Koren et al 2015 can produce information along the entire trail, not only at the sampling points. This information is very important for forest managers, as it allows for monitoring of soil ecosystems after forest operations and planning of soil recovery practices (Pinard et al 2000).…”

“…Although the use of close-range photogrammetry in mapping soil surface structure was demonstrated more than 20 years ago (Warner 1995), the advent of structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry (James & Robson 2012) has generated an improvement in topographic methods, due to its better accessibility to a wider variety of users, low cost, and increased automatization of routines and workflow (Nadal-Romero et al 2015). The advantages introduced by SfM in geosciences have been demonstrated by James & Robson (2012), and the reconstruction of high-resolution surface models (Turner et al 2012) has opened new possibilities of application in geoscience analysis (Castillo et al 2015), forestry (Pierzchala et al 2014, Pierzchala et al 2016) and agriculture (Nouwakpo & Huang 2012).…”

“…These techniques include terrestrial laser scanners (TLS -Vericat et al 2014, Castillo et al 2015 and photogrammetry techniques (Castillo et al 2015, Kaiser et al 2014, which are used, for example, for the analysis of soil erosion (Michetti et al 2015, Nadal-Romero et al 2015. Such techniques make it possible to generate digital elevation models that accurately reproduce topographic surfaces (Vericat et al 2014, Pierzchala et al 2014, Nadal-Romero et al 2015. Various methods have been proposed to measure soil surface microtopography (Heng et al 2010), and their relative strengths and weaknesses have been discussed in recent comparative studies (Jester & Klik 2005, Aguilar et al 2009).…”

UAV Remote Sensing Surveillance of a Mine Tailings Impoundment in Sub-Arctic Conditions

“…Recent reviews on UAVs and their utilization in topographical mapping are provided by Colomina and Molina [13] and Nex and Remondino [14]. UAV-SfM has recently been applied in mapping surface displacement in various fields, such as glaciology and landslide monitoring [17][18][19][20][21][22]. However, most mining-related research utilizing UAVs has focused on mapping open pit and stockpile geometry [23][24][25][26][27], and, to our knowledge, there is no published, peer-reviewed research addressing the utilization of UAVs in the context of mine tailings.…”

Monitoring of Forest Hauling Roads Wearing Course Damage Using Unmanned Aerial Systems

“…They see big potential in the usage of UAS, in particular because it provides, current information in real time, so each situation can be responded to quickly enough to help moderate the damage. The use of UAS for a different purpose than fire prevention was presented by Pierzchała et al (2014) with the example of the determination of soil erosion from skid trails during logging. In their study, aerial photographs were taken by a multi-rotor UAS and a detailed model of the terrain after logging was done, together with the damaged skid trails.…”