Relationship between airborne multispectral image texture and aspen defoliation

A Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager (CASI) multiresolution dataset, comprised of imagery with spatial resolutions of 60 cm, 1 m and 2 m, was used to asses the relationship between defoliation severity of aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) stands infested with the Bruce spanworm (Operophtera bruceata), the Leaf Area Index (LAI) of these stands and the CASI image components comprising of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and image texture. The study area was located in the foothills of the Alberta Canadian Rockies. Defoliation severity, LAI, and crown closure of the stands were measured on the ground. Multiple stepwise regression methods were used to develop relationships between the field and imagery data. Image texture derived from the grey-level co-occurrence matrix of the first principle component, or ‘brightness' image, was incorporated into the discriminant analysis of defoliation severity classes. The highest spatial resolution imagery outperformed the coarser image resolutions. The characteristics of the defoliation changed the spectral response of the moderately and severely defoliated stands considerably when compared to healthy stands. The following paper demonstrates that aspen defoliation severity can be detected with CASI image data, specifically through the incorporation of imagery spatial component captured by image texture.