On the experience of field monitoring and remote sensing technologies integration in regional phytodiversity conservation

Abstract

The Samara regionpossesses the powerful industrial complex, up to 80% of the territory has been turned into agrocenoses, the third largest in Russia dual-core urban agglomeration of Samara-Tolyatti was developed. The natural complexes are confined to relatively small areas in the space of agricultural land, dissected by roads and saturated with settlements.The traditional terrestrial (field) monitoring of biodiversity is associated with valuablelabour- and time costs. The attraction of remote sensing (RS) allows spatially integrated information for vast territories with time minimization, but it requires a system of regional reference (etalon) polygons for adequate proceeding of RS data. Such a system has been developed since 2016 by specialists in the field of ecology, botany and geoinformatics at Samara University.The work implementation in 2016-2022 was carried out in two directions: - formation of a regional system of ground reference plots (etalons) that provide work with RS data; - assessment of the possibilities for the UAVsuse for monitoring of plant communities state, previously carried out exclusively by ground-based methods. The main result of our joint efforts is regionally adjusted classifiers that allow the most efficient processing of available remote sensing materials corresponding to various types of natural and anthropogenically transformed vegetation areas of the Samara region. We also confirmed the point of view on the high efficiency of using UAVs to identify and analyze the state of anthropogenically transformed and natural areas, including small natural objects.Thus, joining the efforts of specialists in various fields and integrating classical and innovative technologies is the most realistic way to study, monitor, and conserve regional phytodiversity.