Drone on the Range: Improving Land Stewardship with Spatial Technologies

Imagine the ability to collect a comprehensive, geolocated map of invasive plants that stand only inches tall across hundreds of acres in a single hour. Or, in the same timeframe, capture fine-scale vegetation data to produce highly accurate forecasts of forage mass and quality.

This combination of speed, efficiency and precision-guided management might seem like a rangeland manager’s dream, but faculty and students of the Landscape Ecology and Drones Lab, housed in the Texas A&M Department of Rangeland, Wildlife and Fisheries Management, are working to make it a reality.

“The main objective of our lab is to provide new insights into how to assess the health and resilience of ecosystems — particularly rangeland systems — through the adoption of spatial technologies,” said Humberto Perotto, Ph.D., lab director, associate professor and Joan Negley Kelleher Endowed Professor in Ranch Management within the department. “We are working with ranchers, nonprofits, and state and federal agencies to answer questions and provide solutions that have a direct impact on rangeland and wildlife ecology and management.”

Ground-level insight from the sky

While the foundation of rangeland health is based on terrestrial factors like soil and vegetation, members of the lab capture insights from above using drones, remote sensors, satellite and hyperspectral imaging, and other advanced tools.

“We work at very, very high resolution because we want to understand the processes that are happening across the landscape at a very fine scale,” Perotto said.

Through statistical and computational modeling, this data is translated into insights on land-use change, vegetation composition and cover, grazing and land-use impacts, habitat quality, forage production, wildlife populations, soil health and more.

Solutions and tools for land stewardship

Perotto said the lab engages in research focused on developing drone-based approaches to rangeland management — essentially mapping out best practices and parameters of what drones and remote sensing tools can and can’t do. But their bread and butter is transforming that foundational information into applied, landscape-scale solutions.

“All of this information matters to ecosystem health,” he said. “We’re focused on developing methodologies that can help us understand how these ecological processes occur and how we can translate that into tools for producers.”

One project in the works is an application that translates drone data into detailed forage forecasts, allowing livestock producers to develop and adapt grazing management plans for optimal livestock and forage productivity alongside ecological health. Yet another undertaking is the identification, treatment and control of invasive species across expansive swaths of land using artificial intelligence.

“This technology can deliver outstanding levels of efficiency and accuracy to the environmental stewardship of rangelands,” Perotto said.

Student training for the evolving field of natural resource management

While research, technology and innovation define the lab, Perotto is also highly focused on its role as a professional training ground and launching point for students.

Since the establishment of the lab in 2023, seven students have earned their Federal Aviation Administration drone pilot licenses while raising the profile of the department through award-winning academic publications and presentations at state, national and international conferences.

“One of the things that I tell my students is, yes, technology will help improve and make many processes more efficient; but at the end of the day, it is you who are the thinkers – the ones who will guide the technology and effectively communicate to the rancher or the land manager how these tools can better help them steward the land,” Perotto said.

“My vision for the lab is to keep working, keep providing students with opportunities to conduct sound, applied science and then translate that in a way that is useful to land managers working to conserve and manage rangelands.”