Quantifying the Biomass of Wood-Residue Piles using Drones

Holding Bachelor’s degrees in GIS, in Business, and post-grad diploma in Logistics, Ray is a Co-op student at ARIC, who started mapping socio-economic and environmental data for the RDI and, lately, has been also researching innovative ways to quantify and utilize the post-logging wood-residue with the support of SGRC (Selkirk Geospatial Research Centre) – as part of a federal government Forestry Innovation Enhancement Grant of $2 million from NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada).
His thesis project “Quantifying the biomass of wood-residue piles using drones” for Selkirk College’s BGIS, was the very first research from a college in British Columbia to have federal funding from Mitacs (Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems), under the Accelerate Program. This project is also having industry-partnership with Terra Sense Analytics, a solidly established drone consultancy in the Okanagan region, to survey cut-blocks in Northern BC.
The Research Speaker and Workshop Series is open to Selkirk College faculty, students, and community members.