Drone-Based Ecohydraulic Signatures of Fully-Vegetated Ditches: Real-Scale Experimental Analysis

Abstract

The prediction of the ecohydraulic and ecohydrological structures of vegetated flows is extremely important; particularly because of the well-known Climate Change and Global Warming implications. This study aims at monitoring the real-scale Ecohydrodynamics of vegetated ditches hardly covered by riparian stands, through the analysis of their reflectance signature. A monitoring system composed of a cruising drone and a thermographic camera was employed in the present experimental study. Once the main average and turbulence traits were measured directly in the field, the correlation between the riparian plant’s Leaf Area Index (LAI) and their thermal properties was studied to assess the impact of drone-based thermometry methods and techniques on the predictions of the main real-scale flow trends of vegetated waterways.

Keywords

• ecohydraulics
• drones
• real-scale flow measurements
• massively vegetated ditches
• ecohydrodynamics