The Emerging Role of UAV for Heathland Monitoring and Conservation: State of the Art and Perspectives

ABSTRACT Heathland ecosystems have undergone substantial degradation over the past 150 years, mainly driven by land‐use changes, agricultural intensification and climate change. As they support significant biodiversity, their conservation is a major concern for both scientists, practitioners and public authorities. Heathland monitoring and conservation can be addressed through field‐based ecology and remote sensing, which rely on distinct but overlapping concepts, data and methodologies. The two approaches primarily differ in their spatial scale and analytical tools, ranging from fine‐scale and site‐specific field ecology to regional or national remote sensing observations. This paper compares the respective contributions of field ecology and remote sensing to heathland monitoring and conservation, with a particular focus on the potential of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) framework is used as a common reference to assess which variables are addressed by each approach. The study pursues three objectives: (1) comparing field ecology and remote sensing contributions, (2) examining the capabilities of remote sensing technologies and (3) evaluating the potential of UAVs for heathland monitoring. The analysis is based on the review of 160 peer‐reviewed articles (76 field ecology and 84 remote sensing studies). Results reveal a broadly similar distribution of EBVs between the two approaches. Field ecology studies more frequently address the Species traits , Species populations and Ecosystem function EBV classes, whereas remote sensing studies predominantly inform on the Ecosystem structure EBV class. Within remote sensing, satellite and aircraft platforms are the most commonly used, primarily relying on RGB and multispectral imagery. UAV‐based studies remain rare (13 articles), but recent multi‐platform approaches combining UAVs with LiDAR, multispectral or hyperspectral data at high spatial resolution highlight their strong potential. The paper also provides a synthesis of key EBVs relevant to heathland conservation for which UAVs appear particularly promising.