Title

Analysis of laser altimeter waveforms for forested ecosystems of Central Florida

Abstract

An experimental profiling airborne laser altimeter system developed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center was used to acquire vertical canopy data from several ecosystem types from The Nature Conservancy's Disney Wilderness Preserve, near Kissimmee, Florida. This laser altimeter, besides providing submeter accuracy of tree height, captures a profile of data which relates to the magnitude of reflectivity of the laser pulse as it penetrates different elevations of the forest canopy. This complete time varying amplitude of the return signal of the laser pulse, between the first (i.e., the canopy top) and last (i.e., the ground) returns, yields a waveform which is related to canopy architecture, specifically the nadir-projected vertical distribution of the surface of canopy components (i.e., foliage, twigs, and branches). Selected profile returns from representative covertypes (e.g., pine flatwoods, bayhead, and cypress wetland) were compared with ground truthed forest composition (i.e., species and size class distribution) and structural (i.e., canopy height, canopy closure, crown depth) measures to help understand how these properties contribute to variation in the altimeter waveform.

Publication Date

1-1-1997

Publication Title

Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering

Volume

3059

Number of Pages

184-189

Document Type

Article; Proceedings Paper

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1117/12.277613

Socpus ID

0031363441 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/0031363441

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS