Urban agriculture as a component of the concept of energy efficient community

Abstract

Issues of quality and diversity of available food, environmental safety and guarantees of sustainable energy supply are becoming critical for the population of urban areas. Part of the urbanized areas cannot be used directly for food production for environmental reasons, but it is quite suitable for the production of energy from biomass. In order to create strategies for processing organic biomass from urban plantations of parks and squares, it is necessary to determine the tools for obtaining and interpreting data on the available and prospective amount of biomass in cities, which was the purpose of our work. Unmanned aerial vehicle studies were conducted at the Botanical Garden of the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine using the Slantrange 3P multispectral sensor system from an industrialtype UAV platform. The study of squares and lawns of the city was conducted using an archive of satellite images in the visible range of high resolution — 0.5 m/pixel and a specialized agricultural service EO Browser with a resolution of images of 10 m/pixel. Monitoring of the park using the Slantrange 3P complex, with specialized SlantView software, allowed to identify tree crowns and grass cover, while it was not possible to distinguish vines. The best identification results for the Slantrange complex were obtained for the red and infrared measurement channels. Using satellite monitoring data, the possibility of identifying the biomass of trees and shrubs occurs in drought conditions, when the grass on the lawns suffers more than trees and shrubs, apparently due to the developed root system. It is noted that satellite imagery is usually carried out at different angles and, accordingly, fixed both roofs and partially walls of buildings, and accordingly, such imagery is more suitable for assessing the biomass of promising vertical landscaping with vines.