A protocol for canopy cover monitoring on forest restoration projects using low-cost drones

Remotely piloted aircrafts (RPAs) are becoming well-known for monitoring forest restoration (FR). Canopy cover percentage on a restoration site is a major indicator for the early phases of FR. We present a protocol to evaluate canopy cover using low-cost RPA and a friendly computational environment. We tested the protocol in six FR projects in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. After processing the images automatically to generate the digital surface model and the digital terrain model, the canopy cover is measured in QGIS by considering height thresholds in the canopy height model. The results had F1 values higher than 0.9, which confirms a robust methodology that does not require specific computer science or remote sensing skills. Thus, low-cost RPA proved to be accurate and user-friendly in measuring the canopy cover, which improves monitoring during most FR stages. Such finding plays an important role in FR policies and future works must study a user-friendly protocol for measuring tree height via low-cost drones.