The “ISPRA – DRONE SURVEY PROTECTED HABITATS” initiative provides technical assistance and scientific support to the PNRR DigitAP project for field activities of natural habitats in Italy’s 24 national parks using Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) technology, more commonly known as drones. The collaboration, which provides ISPRA with support for the technical aspects of surveying and processing data acquired via UAS, aims to define the current state of natural habitats and intends to prepare special guidelines for documenting and analyzing the evolutionary dynamics of environments subjected to different natural and anthropogenic pressures, such as climate change and tourism exploitation, to support the definition of appropriate protection measures.
Goals and expected results
The project is part of a broader pathway of the Ministry of Environment and Energy Security (MASE) support to Italian national parks for natural habitat monitoring activities and the dissemination of new technologies (UAS) for land knowledge and control of pressure factors. A second phase involves the provision of equipment (drones with LiDAR and multispectral sensors) to all 24 National Parks, which are considered particularly suitable for delving into the state of habitats and their evolution over time. The MASE action also intends, in the medium term, to homogenize the technical capabilities of the various protected area management bodies in the area of habitat monitoring: the preparation of monitoring guidelines is intended to further facilitate the path of technological and methodological alignment and enable the production of comparable information across the country.
CIMA Research Foundation’s contribution
CIMA Research Foundation’s intervention consists of the following activities:
- Support to the field activities carried out by ISPRA staff, especially about the definition of the optimal parameters of survey using UAS in the different territorial contexts and functional to the description of the impacts induced by pressures on natural habitats
- support for the scientific-technical evaluation of cartographic products elaborated based on UAS surveys
- collaboration in the production of scientific products, such as guidelines for the use of UAS technology in the field of data collection for monitoring protected habitats
