Academic Journal

Characterization of forest edge structure from airborne laser scanning data

التفاصيل البيبلوغرافية
العنوان: Characterization of forest edge structure from airborne laser scanning data
المؤلفون: Moritz Bruggisser, Zuyuan Wang, Christian Ginzler, Clare Webster, Lars T. Waser
المصدر: Ecological Indicators, Vol 159, Iss , Pp 111624- (2024)
بيانات النشر: Elsevier, 2024.
سنة النشر: 2024
المجموعة: LCC:Ecology
مصطلحات موضوعية: Vegetation structure, National forest inventory, Shelterbelt, Light availability, Ecology, QH540-549.5
الوصف: Forest edges represent the transition zone (ecotone) between the forest interior and the surrounding open land. Due to their great ecological importance, the value of assessing the structure of forest edges has been recognized. In Switzerland, for example, forest edge structure is assessed during field surveys of the Swiss National Forest Inventory (NFI). However, these assessments are time consuming and limited to sample plots. Publicly available countrywide airborne laser scanning (ALS) data, in contrast, offers possibilities to retrieve forest edge structure information over large spatial extents. In this study, we derived five metrics from ALS point clouds, namely the canopy height variability; ratios of the areas of the three edge components, i.e. shrub belt, shelterbelt and forest layer; the sky-view fraction; the shelterbelt slope; and the front density of the forest edge. These metrics describe the three-dimensional edge structure and therefore could enhance existing NFI edge metrics, which focus on two-dimensional structure characteristics. An expert assessment of the ALS edge metrics demonstrated the ability of the defined set of edge metrics to capture ecologically relevant and indicative characteristics of forest edges. Understanding this relationship between edge metrics and ecological functions is a prerequisite if ALS metrics are to be integrated into NFIs. We subsequently used the ALS edge metrics to group 284 forest edge into three classes with respect to their structural complexity using k-means clustering. The results indicated that the structual complexity was low for 173, medium for 46 and high for 65 forest edges, respectively. Applied to countrywide ALS data sets, our approach allows to retrieve area-wide, spatially continuous information on the forest edge conditions, and, if multitemporal ALS data is available, to monitor the development of the forest edges.
نوع الوثيقة: article
وصف الملف: electronic resource
اللغة: English
تدمد: 1470-160X
Relation: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X24000815; https://doaj.org/toc/1470-160X
DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2024.111624
URL الوصول: https://doaj.org/article/8a9a7b97ff344d59a3a68e3e6d1f52ed
رقم الانضمام: edsdoj.8a9a7b97ff344d59a3a68e3e6d1f52ed
قاعدة البيانات: Directory of Open Access Journals
الوصف
تدمد:1470160X
DOI:10.1016/j.ecolind.2024.111624