@article{ref1,
title="Small unmanned aircraft: precise and convenient new tools for surveying wetlands",
journal="Journal of unmanned vehicle systems",
year="2013",
author="Chabot, Dominique and Bird, David M.",
volume="1",
number="1",
pages="15-24",
abstract="Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) could be of benefit for surveying wetlands, which often have spatially complex habitats that are challenging to navigate and assess at ground level. We used a small UAS to acquire aerial imagery and characterize land cover in a 128 ha wetland impoundment as part of a conservation study of the least bittern (Ixobrychus exilis). The method was successful in gathering sub-decimetre georeferenced imagery that clearly revealed the fine-scale water-vegetation interface and in which several types of vegetation could be distinguished and classified using spectral image analysis software. Simplified three-category land cover classifications obtained in this manner showed strong agreement with manual classification of random points in the imagery, as evidenced by a kappa coefficient of 87.19% (n = 600). Compared to cover estimates made during concurrent ground-based surveys in 30 sampling plots, UAS data yielded overall similar water-vegetation ratios, but proved more effectual for detecting small amounts of highly interspersed water. Significant differences (p = 0.004) in cover estimates of the dominant vegetation, cattail, were likely primarily due to limitations of ground-based surveys. Given the effective and convenient application of a UAS in this study, we recommend their further use in wetland-related research and management.   Keywords unmanned aircraft, wetlands, aerial survey, remote sensing, land cover, image classification  Les systèmes d'aéronef sans pilote (UAS) pourraient être très utiles pour inventorier les milieux humides, lesquels consistent souvent en des habitats spatialement complexes, difficiles à parcourir en navigant et à évaluer à partir de la terre ferme. Nous avons utilisé un petit UAS afin d'obtenir une imagerie aérienne et caractériser la couverture terrestre d'un bassin humide de 128 hectares, dans le cadre d'une étude sur la conservation du Petit Blongios (Ixobrychus exilis). Cette méthode nous a permis d'obtenir une imagerie géo référencée de l'ordre d'un décimètre et moins qui a révélé clairement l'interface eau-végétation à petite échelle, à partir de laquelle nous avons pu distinguer et classifier plusieurs types de végétation à l'aide d'un logiciel d'analyse d'images spectrales. Les classifications simplifiées de couverture terrestre en trois catégories ainsi obtenues concordaient avec la classification manuelle de points choisis aléatoirement dans l'imagerie, comme en témoigne le coefficient kappa d...<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="2291-3467",
doi="10.1139/juvs-2013-0014",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/juvs-2013-0014"
}