Monitoring Revegetation with NDVI and Associated Soil Composition and Microbial Biomass and Activity

Michael Fiala*, Paul Kinder, Ember Morrissey, and Walter Veselka.

Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506

Presentation Category: Agricultural & Environmental Sciences (Poster Presentation #64)

Student’s Major: Environmental Microbiology

Transportation of a liquid or gas through pipelines has proven beneficial in providing fuels and resources over long distances and through landforms in a reliable and environmentally friendly manner. Although oil and natural gas production are essential to maintaining a modern society, unfortunately, these activities can also cause severe degradation to natural ecosystems. Reclamation of disturbed lands after pipeline construction is now required, and companies must show evidence of revegetation. One example of how revegetation efforts can be monitored is via drones. Drones are autonomous aircraft that collect high-resolution images used to calculate a Normalized difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to estimate the health of green vegetation. NDVI is often used in precision agriculture by observing the distinct wavelengths of visible and near-infrared sunlight reflected by vegetation. Chlorophyll found in vegetation absorbs visible light for photosynthesis, whereas the cell structure of vegetation strongly reflects near-infrared light. Healthy vegetation growth is then associated when reflected near-infrared light wavelengths occur in a large portion. Therefore, monitoring revegetation using high-resolution imaging (NDVI) has proven successful, and linking positive NDVI values with soil health metrics could help connect aboveground recovery with belowground processes. To address this knowledge gap, we used NDVI values to identify high- and low-quality areas along an established oil pipeline and collected soil samples to measure key soil parameters (moisture percentage, pH, soil organic matter) and microbial biomass and activity. Tying soil health to NDVI data will help managers better assess ecosystems' long-term recovery along pipelines.

Funding: National Science Foundation EPSCOR project "Improving Water management, Treatment, and Recovery in Oil and Gas Production:

Program/mechanism supporting research/creative efforts: WVU's Research Apprenticeship Program (RAP) & accompanying HONR 297-level course