ForestGuard: Dead Tree Detection Tool

The Challenge of Forest Health Monitoring

Forest ecosystems worldwide are facing unprecedented threats from climate change, pests, and diseases. Early detection of tree mortality is crucial for effective forest management, but traditional ground surveys are time-consuming, expensive, and often impractical for large areas.

Our team of geospatial analysts and forestry experts developed ForestGuard to address this challenge by leveraging the power of ArcGIS and remote sensing technologies to automatically identify dead trees from aerial imagery.

Key Features

Automated Detection

Uses unsupervised classification to identify dead trees without manual intervention, saving countless hours of manual interpretation.

Spectral Analysis

Leverages blue band characteristics that typically indicate dead or stressed vegetation for improved accuracy.

Customizable Parameters

Adjustable thresholds for different environments, tree species, and imagery types make the tool versatile across various conditions.

GIS Integration

Seamlessly integrates with ArcGIS workflows, producing standard vector outputs that can be used directly in spatial analysis.

How It Works

Extract forest areas from aerial imagery

Perform Iso Cluster unsupervised classification

Apply Maximum Likelihood classification

Reclassify to identify dead tree signatures

Apply spectral filtering using blue band thresholds

Morphological operations to refine detection

Convert to vector and filter by size

Generate final dead tree polygons

Real-World Applications

ForestGuard has been successfully deployed in multiple environments:

Wildfire Risk Assessment: Identifying areas with high concentrations of dead trees that present elevated fire hazards
Forest Health Monitoring: Tracking the spread of diseases and pests through forest ecosystems
Conservation Planning: Prioritizing areas for restoration and management interventions
Urban Forestry: Managing tree health in urban environments to prevent hazards
Climate Change Research: Studying forest responses to changing environmental conditions

Get ForestGuard

Download the complete toolkit including the Python Toolbox, README with instructions, and example data.

Complete Package

Includes the Python Toolbox, documentation and sample data

ZIP Archive | Contains all project files

Download ForestGuard

Documentation

Scientific

PDF | Published in Journal of Forestry Research

Download research paper

GitHub Repository

Explore the code, report issues, or contribute to the project

View on GitHub

System Requirements: ArcGIS Pro with Spatial Analyst extension