The importance of forestry for human existence is worth mentioning. But it’s shocking that in the last 5 years, from 2015 to 2020, we’ve lost around 50 million hectares of forest, 10 million in each year. It’s estimated that we’ve lost almost 420 million hectares of forest since 1990. If this trend in land degradation goes on, the future earth will no longer be a sweet spot for human existence.
So the million-dollar question arises, how can we get rid of that curse? Do we have any scalable solution to retain our greenery? Well, our solution should scale to make it adaptable in any circumstances irrespective of cost and efficiency. Some common resolutions are tree plantation, recycling, eco forestry, and many more. Forestry engineers have already figured out an efficient way to revamp these forests. But the concern is, this method is highly people-powered and we need a continuous effort to continue this method along with some adequate cost. Also, there is some terrain and hard-to-reach areas, where our manual labor can’t be extended. Ultimately some areas will remain untouched due to communication constraints. Therefore we need some solid solution that can scale at any situation irrespective of cost and efficiency.
That’s why we introduce the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that can be a great alternative to people-powered solutions. According to Droneseed.
One person can plant about 2 acres a day while one person controlling 15 drones can plant about 15 acres a day, which is almost 7 times more than a human.
So, let us get to know more about how this drone-based reforestation has changed the way of revamping the greenery. The concept of drone seeding or more specifically seed bombing is commonly known as aerial reforestation. This method was first developed in Japan inspired by a natural farming technique. Since 1926, aerial reforestation was practiced while aircraft were used to revive the burned forests of Hawaii. In 1999, the seed bombing got industrial attention to launch the technique on a large scale. Now as we learned about the new scalable way to land restoration, let’s get into the details. Aerial seeding is such a technique of planting where we use seed pellets or seedpods that are being sprayed on the ground using aerial devices like drones. This is a four-way process that includes the followings phases:
The first phase refers to understanding the soil, the ground and what species of plants should be sowed in which areas. And this is done in two steps: 1. Data Capture: First and foremost, we need to analyze the area according to our needs. Here we take high-resolution pictures of the land to get insights out of it. 2. Insights: Using the captured image, we try to analyze each detail of the land, which area is best suited for which species, how about the soil health, tentative fertility rate, and many more. This insight helps the aerial seeding to optimize their cost and increase their accuracy and efficiency. After fetching the insights the data are passed into the drone for final execution.
The second phase is preparing seed pods. Before the seeds are sprouted into the ground, the seeds have to be encapsulated so that they can sustain after being fired from a drone. Therefore they are coated with clay, compost, and other components that provide them with enough weight for accurate germination. Also before converting the seeds into seed pods, they’re cleaned and sorted according to different species and also provided with various pretreatments for successful germination. Some manufacturers also add some chili to the seed pods making it abhorrent for other creatures to ensure the chance of being grown up.
The third phase denotes the launching of the drone and firing the seedpods into the ground. The drone is controlled by humans indeed, however, the path on which the seed will be implanted is already loaded in the drone’s database.
The fourth phase is about monitoring the drone’s activity to ensure that it’s working following our instructions. We have to pay utmost attention as one person controls multiple drones and any error might end up with faulty results and loss of wealth as well. There are many types of drones we use regularly. But the drones that are being used are not the usual ones that we use in shooting or for video graphic activity. The heavy-lift payload drones participate in aerial restoration missions. Due to their heavy body and enough capacity to hold the seed pods, they are the perfect match for drone seeding. These drones can lift around 25kgs of seed in one flight and tens of thousands of seeds in a single day. Not only that, in each flight, depending on different drone varieties they can hold around 40-60 types of seeds within the drone hop. However, if you think the journey is over then you’re wrong. Because it’s just the starting of planting through seed bombing. After completing this series of tasks, they have to turn their focus on maintenance and growth of the plants minutely. To ensure the best outcome they must monitor the growth and fertility rate of their implanted seeds. Also, they need to apply liquid insecticide to prevent any unwanted worm attack in the land restoration process. In addition, competing grass and herbs should be cut off as they prevent the usual growth of the tree. So herbicide should be applied on the ground to forestall the overgrowing of the competing weeds and grasses. The drone is not confined to just seed sprouting. Rather it has many diversified fields of usage in forest preservation. And some of this usage can be noted as follows:
Forestry Stewardship:
Forestry is not just planting trees. They also need extensive care of each parameter to ensure better longevity of the living beings residing in the forest. The drone can provide the best cost-efficient and easy way to observe the parameters of forest namely tree density, bushfire, animal biodiversity, and others. By observing these data we can make appropriate decisions better than human assumptions.
Observing Carbon Storage Through 3D Mapping:
Using drone technology we can perform remote sensing more accurately than manual labor. It has lessened our effort and provides a quick and easy solution to measure the carbon storage in forest biomass.
Protection Against Bush Fire:
Nowadays Drones are being widely used in monitoring and providing the best support to protect the forest from unwanted bush fires. They can assume the tentative amount of resources to be sent to the affected area by judging the fire smell. Also, thermal sensors and infrared radiation help to identify fire hotspots that lessen the probable havoc of unintended wildfires. We might have understood how effective the Drone can be in revamping our forestry. But as every aspect has two sides, dark and bright, this technology is not an exception. There are some limiting factors that need to be addressed before adopting this technology into action. One of such factors is the availability of quality seeds. Drone companies have to toil harder than ever to collect quality seeds for better results. And one of the companies recently discovered that finding the true seeds might take over a century. That’s why both private and commercial seed reservations should be extended to preserve the seeds for a long time. Also, different drones are being used for different purposes. That’s why using that method on a personal basis might raise the cost and that can be a drawback to adopting that technology. Whatever it is, being a comparatively new technology, having drawbacks is nothing to be surprised of. What we can do is to put our best effort into adopting this technology to change the climate and make the earth a better place for everyone. Last but not the least, one spell to say is-
