During our surveys across the UK in 2020, we came across a large number of sites with Ash Dieback (Hymenoscyphus fraxineus).  With estimates of around 125 million Ash trees in the UK, it is our third most common native tree. It is also estimated that Ash Dieback could kill up to 80% of this tree species, which is staggering.

Spread by an airborne fungus, these spores can spread to other Ash Trees over many miles. If you are responsible for multiple sites or large areas of woodland, do you know how much of a problem this could be for you? The estimated costs across the UK could be as high as £15bn.

Understanding the species makeup of your trees surrounding your assets and on your land is an important start in managing the risk on your portfolio. Traditional ground tree surveys & inspections across large real estates can take months or even years of man-hours, at a significant cost. This is where our airborne surveys come into their own…

High-Resolution RGB / Vegetation Condition Index comparison – move the slider left/right to view the comparison

Flying at over 100mph, with our bespoke ArborCam camera fitted to a manned aircraft, we can capture data such as tree health, height, count, canopy size & species information for up to 25,000+ trees per hour! We can then determine the species mix across your portfolio, highlighting the worse affected areas, so that you can put in place suitable targeted management plans.

Vegetation Condition Index / Quartile Mean Condition Average – move the slider left/right to view how the VCI information for trees over 3m is converted to quartile average (red (lowest), orange, yellow, green (highest)).

That data can be organised into quartiles, to allow site managers to highlight trees that have the lowest mean VCI on their sites. This allows the site managers to direct ground-based surveys to the worse affected areas first. Our surveys are not there to replace traditional ground-based surveys, but to assist manage this resource efficiently and cost effectively.