Drones used to detect drought stress in Swiss forests

Increasing heat and drought are putting forests under pressure. Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) have used drones to investigate how native tree species are responding to climate change. + Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox To strengthen the resilience of forests in the face of climate change, experts need to know how different tree species react to rising temperatures and water shortages, WSL said in a statement on Monday. Until now, such studies have been expensive and could generally only be carried out on individual trees. A WSL team has therefore been studying images taken by drones equipped with multispectral cameras capable of recording invisible areas of the light spectrum. The cameras detect from the air a particular pigment that trees produce to protect their leaves from excessive sunlight during periods of drought. "This allows us to identify whether a tree is under acute stress even before ...