Aerial / RGB

Owned by Maiwenn Herpe
Last updated: Jun 21, 2021 by Frederika Mourot

Examples of potential applications

  • Land cover mapping. Hawke’s Bay Regional Council has opted to use this option to cover riparian plantings in replacement of drone surveys.

  • Land use change characterisation.

  • Natural hazards mapping.

  • Coastal erosion mapping.

  • Ecosystem mapping.

  • Forest inventories, disturbance mapping, productivity estimates.

  • Wildlife management.

  • Vegetation health mapping.

Range of flight height and captured zone width (m)

Flight altitude: c. 1000 m.

Spectral Range (nm)

Red, green, blue,
(+ Near Infra Red depending on the camera),
c. 400 -700 nm.

Spatial Resolution (m)

Depends on flight altitude but typically < 1 m.

Benefits

  • Often high spatial resolution.

  • Can adjust the time of imagery capture to the needs.

  • Can capture video.

  • Ability to capture data in remote, unsafe or difficult to access locations, lowering safety risks.

  • Long time series (1930s onward).

  • Less atmospheric interference compared to satellite imagery.

  • Can also be used for vegetation analyses if Near Infra Red is also collected.

Limitations

  • Depending on capture mode can be expensive, for small one off capture, but if larger areas or several scattered targets then can be cost effective.

  • Lower spectral resolution than multispectral/hyperspectral sensors.

  • Quality image dependent upon weather.

  • Individual photographs have limited spatial coverage.

  • Spatial coverage dependent on needs of original project.

  • Requires ground control points for accurate geo-registration.

Selection of references

Zhang Y, Canisius F, Zhen C, Feng B, Crawford P, Huang L. 2019. Effectiveness of aerial and ISERV-ISS RGB photos for real-time urban floodwater mapping: case of Calgary 2013 flood. Journal of Applied Remote Sensing. 13(4):044521.

https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JRS.13.044521


Kölling T, Zinner T, Mayer B. 2019. Aircraft-based stereographic reconstruction of 3-D cloud geometry. Atmos Meas Tech. 12(2):1155-1166. doi:10.5194/amt-12-1155-2019.

https://amt.copernicus.org/articles/12/1155/2019/