Modeling Bark Beetle Disturbances in Northwest British Columbia Through Remote Sensing

However, there are significant areas of forestland that do not have AOS regularly, which includes a large area in the northwest corner of the province, leaving a gap in the knowledge of previous occurrences of bark beetles.

This study aimed to address this knowledge gap by isolating the spectral signature of bark beetles and using it to model historic bark beetle disturbances in this region. The process began by extracting the spectral signature of bark beetles through the use of vegetation indices derived from 2024 Landsat imagery and AOS datasets from forests near this area. Through this process, a random forest classifier was modeled, with the various indices assessed for their usefulness.