Using Drone Technology to Track Green Infrastructure Performance

The Landscape Foundation of Australia has launched a new Fellows Interview Series, led by LFA Ambassador Crosbie Lorimer, to highlight the innovative work being undertaken by recipients of LFA’s annual Fellowship Program.

In the first instalment, Crosbie sits down with Michael White, a Melbourne-based landscape architect and one of the Foundation’s inaugural Fellows. Michael’s research project, titled “Aerial Analytics”, is exploring how emerging drone and imaging technologies can be used to monitor the real-world performance of planting projects in complex urban environments.

📺 Watch the full interview with Michael White on the LFA YouTube channel & watch out for the next in the series.

Rethinking Landscape Monitoring: From Trial Plots to Megaprojects

At the heart of Michael’s work is a deceptively simple question: How can we actually track what works in urban planting over time, at scale, and with evidence?

Through his Fellowship, Michael is building a methodology that merges drone-mounted multispectral cameras, climate and soil data, and on-the-ground validation to understand how urban vegetation establishes and evolves. His aim is to enable more granular, evidence-based measurement of success (and failure) in large-scale green infrastructure projects.

“We’re used to trialling small planting plots,” Michael explains, “but the challenge is rolling this out across rail corridors or other infrastructure sites with millions of plants in the ground.”

The solution? A “digital twin” approach — combining aerial imaging, spectral analysis, and temporal baselining to assess vegetation health, track growth patterns, and refine how projects are managed in their critical early months.

Using Drones to See What We Miss

Michael’s project uses the DJI Mavic M3E multispectral drone, which captures visual and near-infrared imagery to produce vegetation indices and moisture maps. When flown at consistent intervals and angles, the drone can detect changes in photosynthetic activity, indicating plant health and ground cover shifts over time, even down to seedlings and weeds over 0.5 cm.

“You can start to get really detailed,” he notes. “And the good news is that consumer-level drone resolution is improving fast.”

This kind of remote sensing is paired with manual fieldwork — including quadrat surveys and soil analysis — to ensure accuracy and ground-truthing of the results. Michael is also developing clear criteria for what constitutes a successful planting outcome, based on different soil types, mulch conditions, and regional climate variables.

Why This Matters for the Profession

Crosbie reflects during the interview that for too long, the landscape profession has lacked a robust feedback loop between design intent and real-world outcomes. Michael’s research helps fill this gap — offering a way for practitioners to validate their projects and iterate based on real evidence, not assumptions.

“For many years, we’ve won awards and moved on,” Crosbie says. “Now we have the technology to go back and test how things are really performing.”

Supported by the LFA Fellowship

The $10,000 LFA Fellowship is helping Michael expand this work across larger infrastructure corridors, and to engage with industry leaders on how performance-based practice can be embedded in project delivery.

“It’s great to have a local organisation like the Landscape Foundation that’s focused on landscape performance, climate, biodiversity and urban heat,” Michael says.

As part of his research, Michael has also conducted a series of interviews with industry experts to understand what performance data practitioners, policymakers, and clients find most valuable — helping to shape the metrics that will matter most on future sites.

Looking Ahead

Michael’s work is a model of the kind of evidence-led, practice-grounded innovation the LFA Fellowship Program is designed to support. His findings will be shared in future case studies and may inform broader tools and standards for natural asset monitoring in Australian cities.

Stay tuned for more conversations in the Fellows Interview Series — including interviews with Brittany Johnston and Daniel Jan Martin — as we continue to explore what leadership looks like in Australia’s green infrastructure future.