Infrared Aerial Photo

http://ecosystems.mbl.edu/pie/data/MAP/irparker.jpg

Infrared Aerial Photography is a powerful tool that can be used to document changes to the environment, the health of forests, wetlands, bays and oceans, as well as many other applications.

Red tones in color infrared aerial photographs are almost always associated with live vegetation and the tone of red can be a guide to the density and health of the vegetation and how vigorously it is growing. Dead vegetation will tend to appear as various shades of tan or green. Thus infrared imagery is particularly useful for crop, forest, wetland, vineyard and other agricultural analyses.

Color infrared aerial photography is also useful for analyzing water depth and sediment content. Clear, clean water will appear very dark, close to a black tone. As sediment content increases the shades shift to blue color tones. Color tones of very shallow water may reflect predominantly the color tones of the soil beneath this water. Color infrared aerial photography is therefore uniquely useful for analyzing sediment flows.

In the infrared aerial photo above, which depicts the mouth of the Parker River in Massachusetts, you can see that the water appears to be clean and clear, since it takes on such a dark, blackish tone. Also, it is evident from the photograph that there is a great deal of vegetation at the mouth of this river, with the more dense areas of vegetation appearing as bright red.