A rigorous assessment of tree height measurements obtained using airborne LIDAR and conventional field methods.

Abstract

Tree height is an important variable in forest inventory programs but is typically time-consuming and costly to measure in the field using conventional techniques. Airborne light detection and ranging (LIDAR) provides individual tree height measurements that are highly correlated with field-derived measurements, but the imprecision of conventional field techniques does not allow for definitive assessments regarding the absolute accuracy of LIDAR tree height measurements and the relative influence of beam divergence setting (i.e., laser footprint size), species type, and digital terrain model (DTM) error on the accuracy of height measurements. In this study, we developed a methodology for acquiring accurate individual tree height measurements (

Citation

Andersen, Hans-Erik; Reutebuch, Stephen E.; McGaughey, Robert J. 2006. A rigorous assessment of tree height measurements obtained using airborne LIDAR and conventional field methods. Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing. 32(5): 355-366