Monitoring technology of near-surface atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration in multiple regions based on unmanned aerial vehicle

Due to the unclear distribution of near-surface atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) in small areas, by choosing Yulin City and Xi'an City as the research areas and applying Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to carry out atmospheric CO₂ concentration monitoring at multiple carbon monitoring points, this study explores the impact of ground object type, height and time on atmospheric CO₂ concentration. Regarding the temporal variation, the atmospheric CO₂ concentration of the vegetation-covered area in the afternoon is lower than that in the morning in summer, and only the evergreen vegetation-covered area in winter has similar characteristics as that in summer. The near-surface atmospheric CO₂ concentration in the vegetated area changes greatly in summer and winter. For the characteristics of vertical distribution of CO₂, the CO₂ concentration gradually decreases with increasing altitude. In summer, the CO₂ concentration in areas affected by human activities decreases rapidly from 0 to 50 meters and decreases slowly from 50 to 150 meters. The CO₂ concentration in vegetation-covered areas decreases slightly from 0 to 150 meters. In winter, the areas affected by human activities and the vegetation-covered areas both decrease rapidly from 0–20 meters and relatively slowly from 20 meters to 100 meters. The experimental results indicate that using UAVs can accurately monitor the atmospheric CO₂ concentration near the surface of typical land features in small areas. UAVs can form air-space-ground carbon monitoring networks with satellites and ground observation points, which is of great significance for quantitative analysis of carbon reduction paths to achieve peak carbon dioxide emission and carbon neutralization.