Forest Height Mapping Based on Lidar and Sar Data

Researches have shown that 3D vegetation structure exerts a strong influence on radiation transmission and changes radiation and energy balance at the land surface. Vegetation spatial structure including plant height, biomass, vertical and horizontal heterogeneity, is an important factor influencing the exchanges of matter and energy between the landscape and atmosphere, and the biodiversity of ecosystems. Boreal Forest is one of the largest ecosystems on the Earth, and it plays an important part in environment and economy. Estimation of boreal forest canopy height is an extremely urgent research because it is essential for understanding ecosystems changing by human activities and climate change. Lidar with capabilities of recording the time-varying return signals provide the vegetation height, ground surface height, and the vertical distribution of vegetated surfaces intercepted by laser pulses. On the other side, radars have the capability responding to the amount of water in forest canopy, as well as its spatial structure. Data from these sensors contain information relevant to different aspects of the biophysical properties of the vegetation canopy.