Determining basic forest stand characteristics using airborne laser scanning in mixed forest stands of Central Europe

doi:10.3832/ifor2520-010

Determining basic forest stand characteristics using airborne laser scanning in mixed forest stands of Central Europe

Róbert Smreček⁽¹⁾ , Zuzana Michnová⁽²⁾, Ivan Sačkov⁽³⁾, Zuzana Danihelová⁽⁴⁾, Martina Levická⁽¹⁾, Ján Tuček⁽¹⁾

iForest - Biogeosciences and Forestry, Volume 11, Issue 1, Pages 181-188 (2018)
doi: https://doi.org/10.3832/ifor2520-010
Published: Feb 19, 2018 - Copyright © 2018 SISEF

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Geo-mapping

This study focused on the derivation of basic stand characteristics from airborne laser scanning (ALS) data, aiming to elucidate which characteristics (mean height and diameter, dominant height and diameter) are best approximated by the variables obtained using ALS data. The height of trees of different species in four permanent plots located in the Slovak Republic was derived from the normalised digital surface model (nDSM) representing the canopy surface, using an automatic approach to identify local maxima (individual treetops). Tree identification was carried out using four different spatial resolutions of the nDSM (0.5 m, 1.0 m, 1.5 m, and 2.0 m) and the number of trees identified was compared with reference data obtained from field measurements. The highest percentage of tree detection (69-75%) was observed at the spatial resolutions of 1.0 and 1.5 m. Absolute differences of tree height between reference and ALS datasets ranged from 0 to 36% at all spatial resolutions. The smallest difference in mean height was obtained using the higher spatial resolution (0.5 m), while the smallest difference in the dominant height of the relative number of thickest trees (h_10%and h_20%) was observed using the lower spatial resolution (2 m). The same trends also apply to diameters. The average errors at resolution of 1.0 and 1.5 m was 8.7%, 5.9% and 9.7% for mean height, h_20% and h_10%, respectively. ALS-derived diameters (obtained using regression models from reference data and ALS-derived individual height as predictor) showed absolute errors in the range 0-48% at all spatial resolutions. The deviation in mean diameter at a resolution of 0.5 m ranged from -12.1% to 15.3%.

Keywords

Forestry, Airborne Laser Scanning, Mixed Forest, Height of Forest Stand, Diameter of Forest Stand

Authors’ address

(1)

Department of Forest Management and Geodesy, Technical University in Zvolen, T. G. Masaryka 24, 960 53 Zvolen (Slovakia)

(2)

Soil Science and Conservation Research Institute, Gagarinova 10, 827 13 Bratislava (Slovakia)

(3)

Department of Forest Policy, Economics and Forest Management, National Forest Centre

(4)

The Institute of Foreign Languages, Technical University in Zvolen, T. G. Masaryka 24, 960 53 Zvolen (Slovakia)

Corresponding author

Róbert Smreček
robert.smrecek@tuzvo.sk

Citation

Smreček R, Michnová Z, Sačkov I, Danihelová Z, Levická M, Tuček J (2018). Determining basic forest stand characteristics using airborne laser scanning in mixed forest stands of Central Europe. iForest 11: 181-188. - doi: 10.3832/ifor2520-010

Academic Editor

Agostino Ferrara

Paper history

Received: Jun 13, 2017
Accepted: Dec 13, 2017

First online: Feb 19, 2018
Publication Date: Feb 28, 2018
Publication Time: 2.27 months

Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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