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February 11, 2022
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A methodology for the automated delineation of crop tree crowns from uav-based aerial imagery by means of morphological image analysis

Publicated to: Agronomy-Basel. 12 (1): 43- - 2022-01-01 12(1), DOI: 10.3390/agronomy12010043

Authors:

Ponce, Juan Manuel; Aquino, Arturo; Tejada, Diego; Al-Hadithi, Basil Mohammed; Andujar, Jose Manuel
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Affiliations

Tech Univ Madrid, Sch Ind Design & Engn, Dept Elect Elect Control Engn & Appl Phys, Ronda Valencia 3, Madrid 28012, Spain - Author
Univ Huelva, Res Ctr Technol Energy & Sustainabil CITES, Huelva Palos Frontera Rd, Huelva 21819, Spain - Author
UPM CSIC, Ctr Automat & Robot, J Gutierrez Abascal 2, Madrid 28006, Spain - Author
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Abstract

The popularisation of aerial remote sensing using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), has boosted the capacities of agronomists and researchers to offer farmers valuable data regarding the status of their crops. This paper describes a methodology for the automated detection and individual delineation of tree crowns in aerial representations of crop fields by means of image processing and analysis techniques, providing accurate information about plant population and canopy coverage in intensive-farming orchards with a row-based plant arrangement. To that end, after pre-processing initial aerial captures by means of photogrammetry and morphological image analysis, a resulting binary representation of the land plot surveyed is treated at connected component-level in order to separate overlapping tree crown projections. Then, those components are morphologically transformed into a set of seeds with which tree crowns are finally delineated, establishing the boundaries between them when they appear overlapped. This solution was tested on images from three different orchards, achieving semantic segmentations in which more than 94% of tree canopy-belonging pixels were correctly classified, and more than 98% of trees were successfully detected when assessing the methodology capacities for estimating the overall plant population. According to these results, the methodology represents a promising tool for automating the inventorying of plants and estimating individual tree-canopy coverage in intensive tree-based orchards.
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Keywords

aircraftcanopy covercolorcrop treedensitydistancelow-altitudemorphological image analysisorchardssystemsunmanned aerial vehicle (uav)Aerial imageryCanopy coverCrop treeMorphological image analysisUnmanned aerial vehicle (uav)Weed detection

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal Agronomy-Basel due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2022, it was in position 16/88, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Agronomy.

From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from World Citations provided by WoS (ESI, Clarivate), it yields a value for the citation normalization relative to the expected citation rate of: 1.46. This indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: ESI Nov 13, 2025)

This information is reinforced by other indicators of the same type, which, although dynamic over time and dependent on the set of average global citations at the time of their calculation, consistently position the work at some point among the top 50% most cited in its field:

  • Weighted Average of Normalized Impact by the Scopus agency: 1.26 (source consulted: FECYT Mar 2025)

Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2026-04-25, the following number of citations:

  • WoS: 11
  • Scopus: 11
  • Google Scholar: 9
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Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2026-04-25:

  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 21 (PlumX).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.
  • Assignment of a Handle/URN as an identifier within the deposit in the Institutional Repository: https://oa.upm.es/87955/

As a result of the publication of the work in the institutional repository, statistical usage data has been obtained that reflects its impact. In terms of dissemination, we can state that, as of

  • Views: 142
  • Downloads: 81
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