Yadav Kandel
Department of Forest and Ecosystem Science
The University of Melbourne, Burnley Campus
500 Yarra Boulevard, Richmond, VIC 3121, Australia
Email:y.kandel@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au
Degree
PhD
Thesis title
LiDAR estimation of aboveground tree biomass
Supervisors
Dr Julian Fox
Dr Stefan Arndt
Dr Steve Livesley
Prof Rod Keenan
Project outline
Remote sensing has been used for long time to collect information on forests. Aerial photography, radar, and optical data such as LANDSAT have been used to derive a number of forest structural attributes. However, there are limitations inherent to these technologies in the assessment and monitoring of forest attributes. In recent years, LiDAR technology has emerged which provides high density and high accuracy three dimensional terrain point data acquisition. The potential of this new technology in operational level forestry is very wide. It has been suggested that LiDAR remote sensing can be used to accurately estimate biomass and carbon of forests and to monitor land use and land use change. There are, however, issues in relation to the data acquired from LiDAR and use of these to estimate different forestry attributes. Some of these include penetration of dense forest by the laser and reflection from the ground. The relationship between the obtained 3-D measures and the final forest parameters like tree height volume, and biomass are also dependent on factors that are unique for each data acquisition such as flying altitude and vegetation characteristics. Therefore, research is needed on the application of LiDAR data to estimate different forest attributes. This study will focus on the efficient integration of LiDAR data capture with ground based sampling for estimation of forest attributes such as biomass and carbon.
This study has been going on in the first instance for a uniform forest (Central Highlands Ash Regrowth), and in the second instance for a non-uniform forest (Black Range Mixed Species) forest of Victoria. Forest inventory data and LiDAR data of these forests (supplied by the Department of Sustainability and Environment of Victoria) are being analysed and will be used to estimate biomass and carbon across the landscape. By quantify relationships between accuracy and sampling intensity in forests with different structure, general protocols can be identified for application to similar forests in the wider context of sustainable forest management.
Paper accepted for the poster presentation in the upcoming IUFRO Division 4.01 Conference: “Meeting multiple demands for forest information: New technologies in forest data gathering”, 17 – 20 August 2009, Mount Gambier- South Australia
Kandel, Y.P., Fox, J. C., Culvenor, D., Arndt, S. K., & Livesely, S. J. (2009), Estimating aboveground biomass of native sclerophyll forest using airborne LiDAR.
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