Airborne laser data for stand delineation and information extraction

London

2009

S. 935-963

Bandaufführung

181875

A literature review of new publications in the field of 3D data for forest ipplications shows that the application of airbome laser Scanner data (ALS) is in he focus of research today due to its great potential for practical applications. While there is a lot of research carried out to derive forest management arameters based on laser metrics deduced from a single tree assessment or a itatistical area based assessment, the dehneation of stand or sub-stand units ierived from laser metrics itself is a rather new approach. In order to describe ätand characteristics Statistical grid cell approaches or single tree approaches Jaye been developed. The LIDAR based segmentation of stand or sub-stand mits is rarely documented. This article provides information on enhanced processes to delineate stand or sub-stand units and to extract different forest information based on airborne laser derived parameters. For the stand ielineation an automatic process was developed which provides a stand or sub-stand unit delineation which is according to the first results sufllciently uniform within Stands and sufficiently different in species, age class, height class, Structure and composition between Stands in order to be distinguishable from adjacent areas. With a combined method the stand boundaries as they are jstablished by the mapping units today, as well as sub-stand units which have in common physical characteristics indicating the same management disposition, were assessed. Finally a first Validation of the forest stand unit delineation is provided, indicating the high potential of ALS data for separating stand units.