Small format aerial photography: methods and achievements in Australian forestry

SUMMARY

Since the mid 1960s Australian forestry has benefited from small format aerial photography (SFAP) for testing new films, scales and photographic conditions; for supplementing major aerial surveys by monitoring changes on small-scale images and using this information to intensify maps, such as plantings and roads in new plantations; for achieving special effects, such as shadowless large-scale coverage to detect understorey details (e.g. disease symptoms) and for double sampling at large scales in conjunction with Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analysis to obtain quantitative data for a flexible, responsive information system. Results from early photographic and mapping trials were quickly incorporated into operational procedures which are now widely applied. Likewise, a major program utilising the special effects of large scale shadowless SFAP for disease detection has been operational for many years. However, double sampling for volume inventories has only recently been applied, in spite of trials in the 1960s. The paper outlines requirements in each of these categories and uses examples from operational programs to illustrate their application.