Novel approaches in GPR data processing for health monitoring of trees

The aggressive fungal attack is seriously threatening tree species in forests and woodlands in the UK and beyond. A lot has been said about the spread of disease and fungal attack on ash and oak trees in the United Kingdom and European countries. Within this context, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) has emerged as one of the most promising non-destructive testing (NDT) methods for acquisition of information about the internal structure of trees in terms of defect and their root system architecture. Nevertheless, current research has shown that there exists limited information and in depth studies within this important area of endeavour. This review paper reports on the current advances made within the context of GPR applications in health monitoring and assessment of trees and tree roots. This paper also discusses and reports on new areas of development including, the reverse-time migration, the microwave tomography and the pattern-recognition approaches within the signal processing and image analysis (interpretation) contexts.