Detection and Surveillance of European Water Chestnut

European water chestnut (Trapa natans) is an invasive floating-leaved aquatic plant that is capable of out-competing native species and altering Ontario’s aquatic ecosystems. In addition to ongoing control of known populations in Ontario, this species is designated as a “Prohibited Species” in Ontario under the Invasive Species Act, 2015 to aid in prevention, detection and control of the species. Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) performs surveillance and control of this species in eastern Ontario in attempts to eradicate existing populations and prevent the establishment of new ones.
This project is performed to advance DUC’s capability of UAV based surveillance of European Water Chestnut through machine learning. As DUC builds capacity with vegetation mapping and invasive species surveillance, we are looking to identify how autoclassification and/or machine learning can be integrated into the process to increase efficiency. This project will focus on classification of European water chestnut (EWC) with a goal of operationalizing a mapping technique that will be helpful for plant identification and can be used to identify existing and new infestations.
Project customer: Duck Unlimited Canada Company
Project status: Under development [October 2022 – now]
For more information please contact us via: info@saiwa.ai