TERRESTRIAL LIDAR SCANNING (TLS) AT PANTHER CREEK RESEARCH PLOTS FOR INVENTORY AND TREE SPECIES IDENTIFICATION

• Sponsoring Institution: Other Cooperating Institutions
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: STATE
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 0227405
• Project Start Date: Sep 14, 2011
• Project End Date: Sep 13, 2016
• Program Code: [(N/A)]- (N/A)

Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
4333 BROOKLYN AVE NE
SEATTLE,WA 98195

Performing Department
Sustainable Resource Management

Non Technical Summary
Precision forestry leverages advanced sensing technologies and analytical tools to support site-specific economic, environmental, and sustainable decision making for the forestry sector in a timely and effective way. The discipline is highly reliant on accurate, timely and detailed forest inventory characterization and structural information, spanning extensive land holdings. Discrete, high density, LiDAR point clouds derived from aerial and terrestrial laser scanning have become invaluable datasets for precision forestry applications. This project will acquire terrestrial LiDAR scans (TLS) for forest inventory and soil study plots at the Panther Creek research site in the state of Oregon, for the purpose of capturing ground based 3D point clouds and scanner hemispherical camera based photography. The data will be utilized for extraction of inventories and compared to traditional methods of forest inventory and aerial LiDAR based inventories (and calibration). Moreover, the new innovative research proposed in this project will focus on deriving tree species information from TLS. This will serve as the basis for future work to use the TLS data to calibrate other remote sensing approaches as well as explore additional potential of TLS data in conjunction with the wide array of scientific project at the Panther Creek research site. This approach will be relevant and useful to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) because it will start to develop a method in which to process and analyze TLS data for forest inventory and management. The data will provide a temporal snapshot of the on ground research plots and well as provide data for the potential research in calibration of aerial LiDAR with TLS. In addition, this project will serve as a starting point for future work and development of a TLS based forest inventory, better species characterization with full-waveform aerial LiDAR, LAI assessment, and understanding of above ground carbon and other silviculture applications.

Animal Health Component

(N/A)

Research Effort Categories

Basic

(N/A)

Applied

(N/A)

Developmental

(N/A)

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
123	0612	2080	100%

Knowledge Area
123 - Management and Sustainability of Forest Resources;

Subject Of Investigation
0612 - Conifer forests of the West;

Field Of Science
2080 - Mathematics and computer sciences;

Keywords

forest canopy

forest inventory

species diversity

silvicultural practices

soil

public lands

lidar

geographic information systems

spatial data

remote sensing

data analysis

forest management

decision support systems

oregon

Goals / Objectives
The primary goal of this project is to provide terrestrial LiDAR scanning (TLS) data at the Oregon State Panther Creek research site that will be used in conjunction with other data and research to enhance the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM's) forest management practices. The specific objective of this project will be to acquire, archive, disseminate and analyses TLS data for study plots already established in the area. The final product will include TLS point cloud data and TLS-based inventories. An important component of this project is to develop a method that will be repeatable in a variety of areas. This will serve as the basis for future work to use the TLS data to calibrate other remote sensing approaches as well as explore additional potential of TLS data in conjunction with the wide array of scientific project at the Panther Creek research site. We propose to answer the following questions: 1. How accurately can TLS capture plot inventories, including species 2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of TLS inventories compared to traditional field methods 3. What is the effect of TLS point densities and TLS occlusion on the above applications

Project Methods
We will: 1. Acquire multi-directions, registered and optimized for least occlusion, terrestrial LiDAR scanning (TLS) point clouds of the Panther Creek ground research plots (1/5 acre and soil plots), including matched hemispherical TLS photos. 2. Extract forest inventories variables including height, DBH and species from TLS. 3. Establish methodologies for retrieval of species information from TLS. 4. Assess the accuracy of TLS derived plot inventories compared to traditional ground methods and metrics derived from aerial LiDAR. The methodology used in this project will be a mix of existing and new techniques to produce TLS based inventories and data for aerial LiDAR calibration and use by other research projects. The primary tool that will be developed from this project is a method for determining species from TLS. We will also assess the TLS resolution and the implications of changes in point cloud density to establish the minimum scanning resolution for this method. This method will utilize trunk roughness as a parameter for species estimation. These attributes may also be useful for other purposes including habitat analysis and identification. All TLS plot data and derived products will be shared with the Panther Creek scientific research team, using Dr. J. Flewelling's Seattle Biometrics site. In additional a copy of the data will also be available through the RSGAL internet resources at: http://depts.washington.edu/rsgal/. As the protocols used to collect the TLS data are proprietary to UW-RSGAL, all end users will be asked to sign a data sharing agreement giving them free and full access to the data.

Progress 09/14/11 to 09/13/16

Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences included the Bureau of Land Management, the US Geological Survey, foresters, researchers, educators, students, and the general public. Changes/Problems:This project was supplemented with additional tasks during the period 2012-2016: The primary goal of the additional tasks was to provide survey grade GPS data for the field plots at the Oregon State Rouge River research site that will be used in conjunction with other data and research to enhance the BLM's forest management practices. The specific objective of thease tasks were to acquire, archive, disseminate and analyses GPS data for study plots already established in the area. The final product included GPS data and plot inventories, habitat assessments and leaf area, and lidar-based inventories, habitat assessment and leaf area using the empirical relationships between the plot and lidar data. An important component of this project was to develop a method that is repeatable in a variety of areas. This serves as the basis for future work to use GPS plot data to calibrate other remote sensing approaches as well as explore additional potential of GPS plot data in conjunction with the wide array of scientific project at the Rouge River research site. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?An undergraduate student assistant was trained in field data collection methods, learned how to be a field crew leader, and learned how to assure date quality and security. A post-doctoral researcher gained experience in working with government agencies and communicating between these agencies and academia. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Time was spent in meeting with key partners at the BLM and presenting the work to BLM foresters. Post-doctoral researcher Jeff Richardson travelled to Oregon on two occasions and met with BLM partners on the University of Washington campus. Jeff Richardson also presented related research at the Association of American Geographers national conference in 2015. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The primary research focus in 2015 was work related to the assessing stream shading from LiDAR at Panther Creek. This work is part of a larger project working in collaboration with the United States Geologic Survey to assess the effects of thinning forest stands near riparian areas. The goal of the project is to be able to estimate the amount of solar radiation that is intercepting the surface of a stream using methods derived from LiDAR data. The early part of 2015 was spent coordinating and arranging the LiDAR and flight as well as coordinating another data acquisition of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) data. The early part of 2015 also included time spent organizing a field campaign to collect ground level data at Panther Creek that could be used to calibrate and assess the accuracy of the LiDAR based method to estimate solar radiation. Two field assistants were recruited, hired, and trained to conduct the field campaign. In addition, some new field equipment was purchased with UGSG funds and other equipment borrowed from another University of Washington laboratory. Time was spent to test the field equipment and in one case, conduct repairs on 2 dataloggers that needed new batteries. The field campaign lasted 2 weeks, and Jeff Richardson was present for the first 3 days of the campaign to supervise and finish training the field crew. Field data was backed up daily to an offsite storage and checked for quality. With the field campaign finished and the remotely sensed data delivered, the latter half of 2015 was spent organizing and checking the field data for quality as well as transforming it into a format that could be used for further analysis in ArcGIS and R statistical software. Extensive literature review was conducted to determine how other researchers have assessed the challenge of estimating solar radiation at stream level using LiDAR, and new studies showed that the best approach was to compare multiple methods in a single paper. Effort was spent preparing the data and building the scripts that could be used to compare at least three different methods: ray tracing, quasi-hemispherical photography, and GIS based solar radiation. The complexity of these methods requires a large amount of work in order to achieve satisfactory results, and this work continued through 2016.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Kling, C.L., Panagopoulos, Y., Rabotyagov, S.S., Valcu, A.M., Gassman, P.W., Campbell, T., White, M.J., Arnold, J.G., Srinivasan, R., Jha, M.K., Richardson, J.J., Moskal, L.M., Turner, R.E., and Rabalais, N.N. 2014. LUMINATE: linking agricultural land use, local water quality and Gulf of Mexico hypoxia. European Review of Agricultural Economics. 41(3): 431-459.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Styers, D.M., Moskal, L.M., Richardson, J.J., and Halabisky, M.A. 2014. Evaluation of the contribution of LiDAR data and postclassification procedures to object-based classification accuracy. Journal of Applied Remote Sensing. 8 (1): 83529-83529. doi: 10.1117/1.JRS.8.083529
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Richardson, J. J., and Moskal L.M. 2014. Assessing the utility of green LiDAR for characterizing bathymetry of heavily forested streams. Remote Sensing Letters, 5 (4), 352-357.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Richardson, J. J and Moskal, L.M. 2014. Uncertainty in urban forest canopy assessment: Lessons from Seattle, WA USA. Urban Forestry and Urban Greening, 13 (1): 152-157.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Richardson, J. J and Moskal L. M. 2016. An Integrated Approach for Monitoring Contemporary and Recruitable Large Woody Debris. Remote Sensing, 8(9), 778.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Richardson, J. J and Moskal L.M. 2016. Urban food crop production capacity and competition with the urban forest. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening. 15, 58-64.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Understanding Spatial Variability and Point Classification Implications on Methods for Retrieval of Leaf Orientation for Effective Leaf Area Index from Terrestrial Laser Scanning. American Geophysical Union National Conference. 2015. San Francisco, CA.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Rabotyagov, S.S, Campbell, T.D., White, M., Atwood, J., Norfleet, M.L., King C.L., Gassman, P.W., Valcu, A., Richardson, J.J., Turner, R.E., Rabalais, N.N. 2014. Cost-effective targeting of conservation investments to reduce the northern Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. 111(52): 18530-18535.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Richardson, J. J, Moskal, L.M., and Bakker, J.D. 2014. Terrestrial Laser scanning for vegetation sampling. Sensors, 14(1): 20304-20319.