Airborne laser scanning (ALS) has emerged as one of the most promising remote sensing technologies to provide data for research and operational applications in a wide range of disciplines related to management of forest ecosystems. Forestry Applications of Airborne Laser Scanning provides a comprehensive, state-of-the-art review of the research and application of ALS in a broad range of forest-related disciplines, especially forest inventory and forest ecology.
However, Forestry Applications of Airborne Laser Scanning is more than just a collection of individual contributions – it consists of a well-composed blend of chapters dealing with fundamental methodological issues and contributions reviewing and illustrating the use of ALS within various domains of application. The reviews provide a comprehensive and unique overview of recent research and applications that researchers, students and practitioners in forest remote sensing and forest ecosystem assessment should consider as a useful reference text.
1. Introduction to forest applications of airborne laser scanning; Jari Vauhkonen et al.
PART I - Methodological issues
2. Laser pulse interaction with forest canopy - geometric and radiometric issues; Andreas Roncat et al.
3. Full-waveform airborne laser scanning systems and their possibilities in forest applications; Markus Hollaus et al.
4. Integrating airborne laser scanning with data from global navigation satellite systems and optical sensors; Ruben Valbuena
5. Segmentation of forest to tree objects; Barbara Koch et al.
6. The semi-individual tree crown approach; Johannes Breidenbach, Rasmus Astrup
7. Tree species recognition based on airborne laser scanning and complementary data sources; Jari Vauhkonen et al.
8. Estimation of biomass components by airborne laser scanning; Sorin C. Popescu, Marius Hauglin
9. Predicting tree diameter distributions; Matti Maltamo, Terje Gobakken
10. A model-based approach for the recovery of forest attributes using airborne laser scanning data; Lauri Mehtatalo et al.
PART II - Forest inventory applications
11. Area-based inventory in Norway - from innovation to an operational reality; Erik Nasset
12. Species specific management inventory in Finland; Matti Maltamo, Petteri Packalen
13. Inventory of forest plantations; Jari Vauhkonen et al.
14. Using airborne laser scanning data to support forest sample surveys; Ronald E. McRoberts et al.
15. Modeling and estimating change; Ronald E. McRoberts et al.
16. Valuation of airborne laser scanning based forest information; Annika Kangas et al.
PART III - Ecological applications
17. Assessing habitats and organism-habitat relationships by airborne laser scanning; Ross A. Hill et al.
18. Assessing biodiversity by airborne laser scanning; Jorg Muller, Kerri Vierling
19. Assessing dead wood by airborne laser scanning; Matti Maltamo et al.
20. Estimation of canopy cover, gap fraction and leaf area index with airborne laser scanning; Lauri Korhonen, Felix Morsdorf
21. Canopy gap detection and analysis with airborne laser scanning; Benoit St-Onge et al.
22. Applications of airborne laser scanning in forest fuel assessment and fire prevention; John Gajardo et al.
Index