The Mykolas Romeris University (MRU) Environmental Management LAB is conducting a research project to assess University sustainability.

The aim of the project is to assess the quality of green areas on campus - parks and forests using drone images.

According to MRU Environmental Management LAB Head Prof. Paulo Pereira, the drone images "tell us that the grass is cut too often on campus."

"These practices - cutting grass too often is bad for the environment," he said.

"If you want to have bees (on campus), don't cut the grass so often," said Prof. Pereira. Bees need more flowers and less grass cut, he added.

MRU has many well-manicured lawns near the MRU LAB building and the campus area near the park.

Prof. Pereira has been studying drone images of the campus area and said it showed the "quality of the vegetation and the environment. The vegetation is badly managed because you cut the grass too often," he emphasized.

It is not only extremely important to cut less often, but also not to use tractors, when cutting grass because tractors are "very damaging" to the soil, he said.

About twice a month, Prof. Pereira and LAB researcher Manab Das, hoist a drone in the air over MRU's campus to determine the condition of soil and vegetation.

"When we see there is less rain, we see that the vegetation that is managed intensively, suffers first. The intensive management is reducing the vegetation resilience," he said.

The soil is in poor condition in several parts of the campus, but especially behind the MRU LAB building. Prof. Pereira came to these conclusions after examining photos of the area retrieved from the drone.

The research project began in May and will continue until September. The results will be presented to MRU's community at the end of September.