Remote Sensing of Poplar Phenophase and Leaf Miner Attack in Urban Forests

Remote sensing of phenology is adopted as the practice in greenery monitoring. Now research is turned towards the fusion of data from various sensors to fill in the gap in time series and allow monitoring of pests and disturbances. Poplar species were monitored for the determination of the best approach for detecting phenology and disturbances. With the adjustments that include a choice of indices, wavelengths, and a setup, a multispectral camera may be used to calibrate satellite images. The image processing pipeline included different denoising and interpolation methods. The correlation of the changes in a signal of top and lateral imaging proved that the contribution of the whole canopy is reflected in satellite images. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and normalized difference red edge index (NDRE) successfully distinguished among phenophases and detected leaf miner presence, unlike enhanced vegetation index (EVI). Changes in the indices were registered before, during, and after the development of the disease. NDRE is the most sensitive as it distinguished among the different intensities of damage caused by pests but it was not able to forecast its occurrence. An efficient and accurate system for detection and monitoring of phenology enables the improvement of the phenological models’ quality and creates the basis for a forecast that allows planning in various disciplines.