Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 1

The spruce bark beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis) is a destructive pest in the forests of western North America.The beetle kills large spruce trees by feeding on the inner bark, disrupting the phloem of the tree, and vectoringa blue stain fungus into the sapwood. Spruce beetle populations are rapidly increasing in northern BritishColumbia, and currently infest 156,000 hectares of timber in this region.Terrestrial Information Services and the College of New Caledonia are collaborating on a project to researchand develop a computer-based method that analyzes high-resolution aerial images of forests and predictstree-level bark beetle attack for the entire area. This approach will introduce several important innovations tothe forest sector: (i) bark beetle survey costs could be reduced by collecting images using unmanned aerialvehicles (UAV) and analyzing the images post-collection with this new approach, and (ii) bark beetleinfestation rates would be predicted for entire areas, which will improve forest management and bark beetlesanitation operations (iii) the UAV approach offers numerous advantages over traditional small-scale highdefinition fixed wing aerial photography such as delivery in near real time and at any scale.Students in the College's Natural Resources and Environmental Technology program will be involved in thisproject, and will develop valuable skills in emerging technologies to manage forest health factors in BC'sforests.