Bin Han

Top-down Green-ups: Satellite Sensing and Deep Models to Predict Buffelgrass Phenology

πŸ“–πŸ“– Paper Synopsis: Top-down Green-ups: Satellite Sensing and Deep Models to Predict Buffelgrass Phenology

An invasive species of grass known as β€œbuffelgrass” contributes to severe wildfires and biodiversity loss in the Southwest United States. We tackle the problem of predicting buffelgrass β€œgreen-ups” (i.e. readiness for herbicidal treatment). To make our predictions, we explore temporal, visual and multi-modal models that combine satellite sensing and deep learning. We find that all of our neural-based approaches improve over conventional buffelgrass green-up models, and discuss how neural model deployment promises significant resource savings.