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Environmental Remote Sensing for Monitoring Plant Health

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Tech ID: 1900

Project Overview
 The long-term goal is to develop methodologies and hardware to detect subsurface contamination at U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sites by means of remote monitoring of signatures (via reflectance and laser-induced fluorescence) from vegetarian overgrowth. Fiscal Year (FY) 2000 is currently planned as the last year of the project so that the primary work is concentrating on analyzing and writing up data that have been collected on controlled stressed populations of plants.

Technology Description
 This project tests many different types of remote sensors, in parallel, and collects optical signatures on populations of plants grown and stressed under controlled conditions to identify the best sensor, or combination of sensors, for detecting the presence of contamination in soil and/or groundwater. Classical as well as novel methods are used for data collection and data analysis (in an effort to make the best use of all the raw data obtained). Data analysis methods include neural net analysis, higher-order derivative analysis, analyzing fluorescence ratios, etc. To understand the entire plant stress picture more completely, the experimental stressed-plant populations are analyzed biochemically, anatomically, and morphologically. In addition to using passive reflectance as a baseline, laser-based technology is being developed as a more chemically sensitive optical probe; new state-of-the-art passive hyperspectral imagers (developed by other laboratories are being tested here) have produced good results.

Laser induced fluorescence (LIF) techniques (hardware, software, methodology, and data analysis) represent the primary part of the technology being developed at Special Technologies Laboratory (STL), but the complete technology being investigated in this project is the remote sensing of plants for underlying contamination. For the LIF techniques, a pulsed ultraviolet laser (normally eye-safe) is used to excite fluorescence in the vegetation being surveyed. The fluorescence is collected spectrally in the 400- to 800-nm region. Data can be collected in full daylight. Sensor standoff can be anywhere from a few feet to hundreds of feet; the sensor system could even be used on a low-altitude airborne platform (it has already been mounted on aircraft more than once).

The data collected are analyzed for indications of stress in the plants that may signify an environmental problem (change detection) such as subsurface contamination. While the experiments of this project concentrate primarily on greenhouse-grown plants, leveraging through contracts with other agencies plus cooperation with other laboratories has already led to several field tests of the LIF techniques developed, and additional field measurements are planned under outside support. The ultimate goal is field deployment of a remote sensing instrument suite for contamination detection, be it identification of problem areas, containment verification, monitoring of phytoremediators, or whatever, through signatures from plants.

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