¶ Aerial surveys and inventory mapping
| Company | Aerometrex |
| Country | Australia |
| Website | https://aerometrex.com.au/industries/forestry-agriculture/ |
| Category | Planning & Inventory › Remote sensing & mapping |
¶ Overview
Aerial surveys and inventory mapping represent a systematic approach to quantifying and characterising forest resources from airborne platforms, combining remote sensing data collection with spatial analysis to produce detailed forest inventories at scale. Traditionally conducted using manned fixed-wing aircraft equipped with photogrammetric cameras, modern aerial survey programs increasingly rely on UAVs and satellite constellations to deliver faster, cheaper, and more frequent coverage. In forest inventory applications, the key objective is to estimate stand-level attributes — including tree height, basal area, stem density, species composition, and timber volume — across entire management areas. Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) has become the gold-standard sensor technology for this purpose, generating dense three-dimensional point clouds from which canopy height models, digital terrain models, and individual tree metrics can be derived with centimetre-level accuracy. Complementary photogrammetric techniques using Structure from Motion (SfM) software allow high-resolution imagery captured by lower-cost drone platforms to produce similar 3D outputs. In Australia, aerial survey programs underpin the national forest inventory and are used extensively by state forestry agencies and private plantation companies to plan harvest coupes, calculate sustainable yield, and meet environmental reporting obligations. Companies such as Interpine and specialist remote sensing firms deliver end-to-end aerial inventory services to the Australian forestry sector. The integration of aerial survey data with ground-based sample plots through area-based estimation methods allows statistically robust inventory figures to be produced at landscape scale, reducing the need for costly and time-consuming ground-only measurement campaigns while improving overall accuracy and spatial resolution.
¶ Assessment
A strong option for rapid, cost-effective mapping and early problem detection, though its effectiveness still depends on adoption feasibility and how well it generalises across forest types.
¶ Details
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Company | Aerometrex |
| Country | Australia |
| Type | Company |
| FWPA RD&E | 7.3 |