Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology (한국환경복원기술학회지)

The Korea Society of Environmental Restoration Technology (한국환경복원기술학회)
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The Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Monitoring Individuals of Ardeidae Species in Breeding Habitat: A Case study on Natural Monument in Sinjeop-ri, Yeoju, South Korea

백로류 집단번식지의 개체수 모니터링을 위한 무인항공기 활용연구 - 천연기념물 209호 여주 신접리 백로와 왜가리 번식지를 대상으로 -

  • Park, Hyun-Chul (Spatial Ecology Institute RAUM Co.) ;
  • Kil, Sung-Ho (Department of Ecological Landscape Architecture Design, Kangwon National University) ;
  • Seo, Ok-Ha (Department of Ecological Landscape Architecture Design, Kangwon National University)
  • 박현철 (공간생태연구소 라움) ;
  • 길승호 (강원대학교 생태조경디자인학과) ;
  • 서옥하 (강원대학교 생태조경디자인학과)
  • Received : 2018.10.30
  • Accepted : 2019.01.21
  • Published : 2019.02.28
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Abstract

In this research, it is a basic study to investigate the population of birds using UAVs. The research area is Ardeidae species(ASP) habitat and has long-term monitoring. The purpose of the study is to compare the ASP populations which analyzed ground observational survey and UAVs imagery. We used DJI's Mavic pro and Phantom4 for this research. Before investigating the population of ASP, we measured the escape distance by the UAVs, and the escape distances of the two UAVs models were statistically significant. Such a result would be different in UAV size and rotor(rotary wing) noise. The population of ASP who analyzed the ground observation and UAVs imagery count differed greatly. In detail, the population(mean) on the ground observation was 174.9, and the UAVs was 247.1 ~ 249.9. As a result of analyzing the UAVs imagery, These results indicate that the lower the UAVs camera altitude, the higher the ASP population, and the lower the UAVs camera altitude, the higher the resolution of the images and the better the reading of the individual of ASP. And we confirmed analyzed images taken at various altitudes, the individuals of ASP was not statistically significant. This is because the resolution of the phantom was superior to that of mavic pro. Our research is fundamental compared to similar studies. However, long-term monitoring for ASP of South Korea's by ground observation is a barrier of the reliability of the monitoring result. We suggested how to use UAVs which can improve long-term monitoring for ASP habitat.

Keywords

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Figure 1. Study area for monitoring of egrets and grey herons populations in Breeding Ground. The black polygon is natural monument in Sinjeop-ri, Yeoju, South Korea

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Figure 2. Breeding ground images taken with the drones at various altitudes, and the circle image is a partial enlargement of the original image(A: PHANTOM, B: MAVIC)

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Figure 3. Marking of heron and egret individuals using CAD tool(The cross is a marking block)

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Figure 4. Box plot of expression levels of escape distance by Mavic and Phantom. The plot illustrates that the sets are different from each other in terms of expression level. p-value denotes the result from pair-wised t-test.

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Figure 5. Box plot of expression levels of individuals of heron and egret by image taken with drone and ground observation. The plot illustrates that the sets are different from each other in terms of expression level. p-value denotes the result from one-way ANOVA

Table 1. Drone sources

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Table 2. The escape distance of the heron and egret measured by different models of drones

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Table 3. The individuals of heron and egret by ground observation and drone image analysis

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