Lidar scanning can help identify structurally heterogeneous forest areas
Wednesday, November 25, 2015 - 08:30
in Earth & Climate
The inequality of tree sizes in a forest is an important factor affecting its structure and ecology. Forest management practices favouring natural regeneration can result in greater heterogeneity and complexity of forests, which may be desirable for some purposes, but at the same time makes forest monitoring and management more difficult. A recent study from the University of Eastern Finland analysed the most suitable indicators for expressing size differences among neighbouring trees and developed methods to obtain these indicators using the lidar technology. In this method, forests are scanned with a laser on board a plane, penetrating the canopy and providing valuable information of their entire vertical profile.