Terrestrial laser scanning to estimate plot-level forest canopy fuel properties

Garcia, M; Danson, FM; Riano, D; Chuvieco, E; Ramirez Cardozo, FA; Bandugula, V

Abstract

This paper evaluates the potential of a terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) to characterize forest canopy fuel
characteristics at plot level. Several canopy properties, namely canopy height, canopy cover, canopy base
height and fuel strata gap were estimated. Different approaches were tested to avoid the effect of canopy
shadowing on canopy height estimation caused by deployment of the TLS below the canopy. Estimation
of canopy height using a grid approach provided a coefficient of determination of R2 = 0.81 and an RMSE
of 2.47 m. A similar RMSE was obtained using the 99th percentile of the height distribution of the highest
points, representing the 1% of the data, although the coefficient of determination was lower (R2 = 0.70).
Canopy cover (CC) was estimated as a function of the occupied cells of a grid superimposed upon the
TLS point clouds. It was found that CC estimates were dependent on the cell size selected, with 3 cm
being the optimum resolution for this study. The effect of the zenith view angle on CC estimates was also
analyzed. A simple method was developed to estimate canopy base height from the vegetation vertical
profiles derived from an occupied/non-occupied voxels approach. Canopy base height was estimated
with an RMSE of 3.09 m and an R2 = 0.86. Terrestrial laser scanning also provides a unique opportunity
to estimate the fuel strata gap (FSG), which has not been previously derived from remotely sensed data.
The FSG was also derived from the vegetation vertical profile with an RMSE of 1.53 m and an R2 = 0.87.

Citation

Garcia, M., Danson, F., Riano, D., Chuvieco, E., Ramirez Cardozo, F., & Bandugula, V. (2011). Terrestrial laser scanning to estimate plot-level forest canopy fuel properties. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 13(4), 636-645. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2011.03.006

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Aug 1, 2011
• Deposit Date: Jul 22, 2011
• Journal: International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation
• Print ISSN: 0303-2434
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 13
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 636-645
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2011.03.006
• Keywords: Terrestrial LiDAR, canopy fuels, fuel strata gap, canopy base height, canopy height, canopy cover
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2011.03.006