{"id":7963,"date":"2026-07-20T07:41:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T04:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/terra-drone.com.sa\/?p=7963"},"modified":"2026-07-23T07:41:51","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T04:41:51","slug":"afforestation-monitoring-using-multispectral-drone-for-tree-canopy-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terra-drone.com.sa\/ar\/afforestation-monitoring-using-multispectral-drone-for-tree-canopy-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Afforestation Monitoring: Using Multispectral Drone for Tree Canopy Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

Urban greening in desert environments requires active monitoring to ensure long-term plant survival. Under Saudi Vision 2030, the Green Riyadh project represents a massive effort to build sustainable urban spaces.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A central part of this initiative is the construction of three new city parks in the Al Munsiyah, Al Rimmal, and Al Qadisiyah neighborhoods, covering a combined landscape of over 550,000 square meters.<\/span><\/p>\n

To create a balanced microclimate, contractors are executing an intensive landscaping plan to plant<\/span> more than 585,000 trees and shrubs across <\/span>65% of the park layout<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The broader municipal goal dictates the strategic planting of<\/span> 7.5 million trees across Riyadh by 2030, <\/span>raising the capital’s overall green cover to 9%<\/span><\/a> and expanding green space to 28 square meters per capita.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, managing hundreds of thousands of newly planted saplings in extreme desert heat creates a serious operational bottleneck.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Traditional ground-based visual surveys are slow and often fail to spot plant stress until leaves turn dry and brown.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To protect young tree canopies, project managers need automated aerial tools to evaluate plant health before visible damage occurs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond Visual Sight: Multispectral Sensing<\/b><\/h2>\n
\"A
Multispectral NDVI mapping reveals early plant stress and chlorophyll drops weeks before leaves dry out or turn brown visually.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Standard RGB visual cameras only capture what the human eye can see. By the time a tree leaf turns yellow or brown in a standard photo, internal cellular damage has already occurred, making recovery difficult.<\/span><\/p>\n

Multispectral remote sensing solves this problem by capturing light beyond the visible spectrum. Healthy plants absorb red light for photosynthesis and strongly reflect Near-Infrared (NIR) light off their internal leaf structure.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When a plant experiences water shortage, soil salinity, or disease, its internal cell structure collapses, causing NIR reflection to drop immediately.<\/span><\/p>\n

Healthy Leaf \u2794 High NIR Reflection + High Red Light Absorption \u2794 High NDVI Score Stressed Leaf \u2794 Low NIR Reflection + Low Red Light Absorption \u2794 Low NDVI Score\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By calculating ratios between reflected light bands, specialized mapping software generates diagnostic vegetation indices:<\/span><\/p>\n