BCUENR 2022: Risk Assessment of Loblolly Pine Damage with Visual and Unmanned Aerial System Ratings

A contribution to the 14th Biennial Conference on University of Education in Natural Resources, hosted in March 2022 by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's School of Natural Resources and College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. Rebecca Young and Judith Turk, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Content is the property of the authors under the Creative Commons agreement.

Risk Assessment of Loblolly Pine Winter Storm Damage with Visual and Unmanned Aerial System Ratings

Record breaking temperatures and snow fall was recorded during a five-day event from February 14-20, 2021. During the event, broken branches occurred and 78 loblolly and one slash pine adjacent to the Arthur Temple College of Forestry building, Stephen F. Austin State University campus were rated for damage using the CTLA tree hazard method. Two weeks after the snow and ice event, damage was observed around the ATCOFA area as the pine trees turned brown. To complete an assessment of the trees, a orthophotomosaic was created using the DJI Phantom 4 Pro with the Pix4DCapure app. A DJI Mavic Mini2 Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) was used to gather visual assessment data of the damage and was compared to the visual CTLA method. These methods introduced experiential learning into the laboratory experience for UAS urban forest hazard rating.