Spongy moth (Lymantria dispar dispar) has caused considerable damage to oak trees across eastern deciduous forests. Forest management, post-outbreak, is resource intensive and typically focused on ecosystem restoration or resource loss mitigation. Some local forest managers and government partners are exploring developing technologies such as Unpiloted Aerial Systems (UASs, UAVs, or drones) to enhance their ability to gather reliable fine-scale information. However, with limited resources and the complexity of investing in hardware, software, and technical expertise, the decision to adopt UAS technologies has raised questions on their effectiveness. The objective of this study was to evaluate the abilities of two UAS surveying approaches for classifying the health of individual oak trees following a spongy moth outbreak. Combinations of two UAS multispectral sensors and two Structure from Motion (SfM)-based software are compared. The results indicate that the overall classification accuracy differed by as much as 3.8% between the hardware and software configurations. Additionally, the class-specific accuracy for ’Declining Oaks‘ differed by 5–10% (producer’s and user’s accuracies). The processing experience between open-source and commercial SfM software was also documented and demonstrated a 25-to-75-fold increase in processing duration. These results point out major considerations of time and software accessibility when selecting between hardware and software options for fine-scale forest mapping. Based on these findings, future stakeholders can decide between cost, practicality, technical complexity, and effectiveness.

中文翻译：

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用于测量橡树-松林中小规模橡树健康状况的无人机系统硬件和软件的比较

海绵蛾（Lymantria dispar dispar）对东部落叶林的橡树造成了相当大的损害。疫情爆发后的森林管理是资源密集型的，通常侧重于生态系统恢复或减少资源损失。一些当地森林管理者和政府合作伙伴正在探索开发无人机系统（UAS、UAV 或无人机）等技术，以增强他们收集可靠的精细信息的能力。然而，由于资源有限以及硬件、软件和技术专业知识投资的复杂性，采用无人机技术的决定引发了对其有效性的质疑。本研究的目的是评估两种无人机测量方法对海绵蛾爆发后单个橡树的健康状况进行分类的能力。对两个 UAS 多光谱传感器和两个基于运动结构 (SfM) 的软件的组合进行了比较。结果表明，硬件和软件配置之间的总体分类精度差异高达 3.8%。此外，“Declined Oaks”的特定类别准确度存在 5-10% 的差异（生产者和用户的准确度）。开源和商业 SfM 软件之间的处理经验也被记录下来，并证明处理持续时间增加了 25 至 75 倍。这些结果指出了在精细森林测绘的硬件和软件选项之间进行选择时对时间和软件可访问性的主要考虑因素。根据这些发现，未来的利益相关者可以在成本、实用性、技术复杂性和有效性之间做出决定。