Towards an automated approach for monitoring vegetation green-up dynamics using vehicle dashcams in urban environments

Phenological events are highly sensitive to climatic variation, and temporal phenological shifts have significant impact on ecosystem function. Vegetation in urban environments holds significant value in providing ecosystem services, of which will become increasingly important as urban populations g...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Crudge, Sally Jane
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/63790/
_version_ 1848800057738919936
author Crudge, Sally Jane
author_facet Crudge, Sally Jane
author_sort Crudge, Sally Jane
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Phenological events are highly sensitive to climatic variation, and temporal phenological shifts have significant impact on ecosystem function. Vegetation in urban environments holds significant value in providing ecosystem services, of which will become increasingly important as urban populations grow. Insights into vegetation phenological transitions have typically long been monitored through satellite imaging analysis and ground-based field measurements, but these methods are limited by financial costs and coarse resolutions, both spatially and temporally. Despite an increase in the growth of fixed digital camera networks for monitoring vegetation phenology, there still exists a data gap in urban settings. Findings of this study showcased that time series imagery of street level trees in urban environments is obtainable from vehicle dashcams. The YOLOv3 deep learning algorithm demonstrated suitability for automating stages of processing towards deriving a greenness metric. However, further work is required to determine an optimum sized detector training dataset, which also proportionally represents trees across the phenological cycle. Questions remain as to how error caused by scene illuminance variation can be mitigated and as to how full automation from raw data to the final green-up metric can be reached.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T20:45:31Z
format Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
id nottingham-63790
institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
language English
last_indexed 2025-11-14T20:45:31Z
publishDate 2020
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling nottingham-637902025-02-28T15:07:04Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/63790/ Towards an automated approach for monitoring vegetation green-up dynamics using vehicle dashcams in urban environments Crudge, Sally Jane Phenological events are highly sensitive to climatic variation, and temporal phenological shifts have significant impact on ecosystem function. Vegetation in urban environments holds significant value in providing ecosystem services, of which will become increasingly important as urban populations grow. Insights into vegetation phenological transitions have typically long been monitored through satellite imaging analysis and ground-based field measurements, but these methods are limited by financial costs and coarse resolutions, both spatially and temporally. Despite an increase in the growth of fixed digital camera networks for monitoring vegetation phenology, there still exists a data gap in urban settings. Findings of this study showcased that time series imagery of street level trees in urban environments is obtainable from vehicle dashcams. The YOLOv3 deep learning algorithm demonstrated suitability for automating stages of processing towards deriving a greenness metric. However, further work is required to determine an optimum sized detector training dataset, which also proportionally represents trees across the phenological cycle. Questions remain as to how error caused by scene illuminance variation can be mitigated and as to how full automation from raw data to the final green-up metric can be reached. 2020-12-11 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/63790/1/CRUDGE_MResDissertation.pdf Crudge, Sally Jane (2020) Towards an automated approach for monitoring vegetation green-up dynamics using vehicle dashcams in urban environments. MRes thesis, University of Nottingham. Phenology; Digital cameras; Video recording Equipment and supplies; Trees in cities;
spellingShingle Phenology; Digital cameras; Video recording
Equipment and supplies; Trees in cities;
Crudge, Sally Jane
Towards an automated approach for monitoring vegetation green-up dynamics using vehicle dashcams in urban environments
title Towards an automated approach for monitoring vegetation green-up dynamics using vehicle dashcams in urban environments
title_full Towards an automated approach for monitoring vegetation green-up dynamics using vehicle dashcams in urban environments
title_fullStr Towards an automated approach for monitoring vegetation green-up dynamics using vehicle dashcams in urban environments
title_full_unstemmed Towards an automated approach for monitoring vegetation green-up dynamics using vehicle dashcams in urban environments
title_short Towards an automated approach for monitoring vegetation green-up dynamics using vehicle dashcams in urban environments
title_sort towards an automated approach for monitoring vegetation green-up dynamics using vehicle dashcams in urban environments
topic Phenology; Digital cameras; Video recording
Equipment and supplies; Trees in cities;
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/63790/