Extraction of forest structural parameters based on the intensity information of high-density airborne light detection and ranging

Abstract

Extraction of forest structural parameters based on the intensity information of high-density airborne light detection and ranging J. Appl. Remote Sens. 6, 063533 (Jun 21, 2012); http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/1.JRS.6.063533 Alerts Tools Share Abstract References (23) Chunxiang Cao, Yunfei Bao, Wei Chen, and Rong Tian Institute of Remote Sensing Applications of Chinese Academy of Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, PO Box 9718-13, Datun Road, Chaoyang District, 100101, Beijing, China Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 19, Yuquan Road, Shijingshan District, 100049, Beijing, China Yongfeng Dang State Forestry Administration, No. 18, Hepingli East Street, Dongcheng District, 100714, Beijing, China Lin Li China Agricultural University, College of Information and Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Technology, No. 17, Tsinghua East Road, Haidian District, 100083, Beijing, China Guanghe Li Beijing University of Technology, No. 100, Pingle Park, Chaoyang District, 100124, Beijing, China The quantitative description of forest canopy structure is significant for the investigation of a forest, which serves as an important component of the terrestrial ecosystem. Light detection and ranging (LIDAR), as a new technical means that can acquire high-precision vertical information, plays a crucial role in forest monitoring and management. Choosing Dayekou forest experimental area in the Heihe watershed as a study area, we separated the ground points from the vegetation points using the skewness-change algorithm based on the intensity information from airborne LIDAR data. After that, digital terrain model (DTM) and digital surface model (DSM) were generated, respectively, based on which the canopy height model (CHM) was acquired. Finally, using the variational window, the local maximum filter method was used to extract individual tree heights and crown widths from CHM. The determination coefficients of tree heights and crown widths were 0.8568 and 0.3923, respectively. The validation results indicated that the tree heights could be effectively extracted from intensity information of airborne LIDAR, while the accuracy of extracted crown widths needed to be improved. In the future work, aerial photos and other high-resolution images would be combined to improve the accuracy. © 2012 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers History Received Sep 04, 2011 Accepted Mar 26, 2012 Revised Mar 15, 2012 Published online Jun 21, 2012 Digital Object Identifier http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/1.JRS.6.063533 Citation Chunxiang Cao, Yunfei Bao, Wei Chen, Yongfeng Dang, Lin Li, Rong Tian and Guanghe Li, "Extraction of forest structural parameters based on the intensity information of high-density airborne light detection and ranging", J. Appl. Remote Sens. 6, 063533 (Jun 21, 2012); http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/1.JRS.6.063533