Predicting forest stand characteristics with airborne scanning lidar

摘要

Currently, commercial forestry application of airborne scanning lidar are limited to geo-technical applications such as creation of digital terrain models for layout of roads or logging systems. We investigated the feasibility of predicting characteristics of forest stands with lidar data in a university-industry partnership. Lidar lends itself well to such applications because it allows direct measurement of important structural characteristics of height and canopy closure. We found that lidar data can be used to predict the stand characteristics of height, basal area, and volume quite well. The potential for commercial applications appears bright. Lidar data can be used to estimate stand characteristics over large areas or entire forests. After the process is streamlined, it should be possible to provide maps of height, basal area, and volume in such areas within a few weeks of the lidar collection flight.