LiDAR Remote Sensing of Vegetation Biomass

Accurate estimates of vegetation biomass are critical for calibrating and validating biogeochemical models (Hurtt et al. 2010), quantifying carbon fluxes from land use and land cover change (Shukla et al. 1990; Houghton et al. 2001), and supporting the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) program to reduce deforestation and forest degradation (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) (Asner 2009). For instance, it was argued that at least half of the uncertainty in the estimates of emissions of carbon from land use change results from uncertain estimates of biomass density (Houghton 2005; Houghton et al. 2009). CONTENTS