Determining infestation of Pine Processionary Moth using remote sensing

Abstract

Insects are one of the most important elements of the natural balance in forest ecosystems. Thaumetopoea pityocampa, which is one of the important pests of Turkey's forests, causes increment loss, tree dead and economic losses in the forest stands. Therefore, there is a need for alternative methods of detecting and monitoring beetle damage with low cost and acceptable accuracy. Remote sensing data is widely used in beetle damage detection. In this study, the infestation of Thaumetopoea pityocampa in Calabrian pine forests in Kahramanmaraş Regional Directorate of Forestry, Elmalar Planning unit was determined with Remote Sensing data. 70 forest stands (sub-compartments) belonging to the infested (2016) and non-infested (2022) periods were determined in the study area. The minimum, average, maximum and total values of NDVI values were calculated using Landsat 8 OLI satellite images. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test was used to determine whether the NDVI values were normal. Using SPSS software, the difference in NDVI values in infested and non-infested forest stands were statistically analyzed using a paired sample t-test. According to results, there was a statistically significant difference between all NDVI values in the years 2016 and 2022.