Digital Agriculture, Food and Wine Sciences Group, Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, School of Agriculture and Food, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia.
Sensors (Basel). 2021 Jan 4;21(1):295. doi: 10.3390/s21010295.
Climate change forecasts higher temperatures in urban environments worsening the urban heat island effect (UHI). Green infrastructure (GI) in cities could reduce the UHI by regulating and reducing ambient temperatures. Forest cities (i.e., Melbourne, Australia) aimed for large-scale planting of trees to adapt to climate change in the next decade. Therefore, monitoring cities' green infrastructure requires close assessment of growth and water status at the tree-by-tree resolution for its proper maintenance and needs to be automated and efficient. This project proposed a novel monitoring system using an integrated visible and infrared thermal camera mounted on top of moving vehicles. Automated computer vision algorithms were used to analyze data gathered at an Elm trees avenue in the city of Melbourne, Australia ( = 172 trees) to obtain tree growth in the form of effective leaf area index () and tree water stress index (TWSI), among other parameters. Results showed the tree-by-tree variation of trees monitored (5.04 km) between 2016-2017. The growth and water stress parameters obtained were mapped using customized codes and corresponded with weather trends and urban management. The proposed urban tree monitoring system could be a useful tool for city planning and GI monitoring, which can graphically show the diurnal, spatial, and temporal patterns of change of and TWSI to monitor the effects of climate change on the GI of cities.
气候变化预测城市环境温度升高，使城市热岛效应（UHI）恶化。城市中的绿色基础设施（GI）可以通过调节和降低环境温度来减少 UHI。森林城市（如澳大利亚墨尔本）旨在大规模种植树木，以适应未来十年的气候变化。因此，监测城市的绿色基础设施需要密切评估树木的生长和水分状况，以实现其适当的维护，并需要自动化和高效。本项目提出了一种使用安装在移动车辆顶部的集成可见和红外热像仪的新型监测系统。自动化计算机视觉算法用于分析在澳大利亚墨尔本市榆木大道（= 172 棵树）收集的数据，以获取树木生长的有效叶面积指数（）和树木水分胁迫指数（TWSI）等参数。结果表明，2016 年至 2017 年间，监测树木（5.04 公里）之间存在树与树的差异。使用定制代码对获得的生长和水分胁迫参数进行映射，并与天气趋势和城市管理相对应。所提出的城市树木监测系统可以成为城市规划和 GI 监测的有用工具，可以直观地显示和 TWSI 的昼夜、空间和时间变化模式，以监测气候变化对城市 GI 的影响。
