Title
Extracting Structural Vegetation Components From Small-Footprint Waveform Lidar for Biomass Estimation in Savanna Ecosystems
Abstract
Measurement of vegetation biomass accumulation is critical for ecosystem assessment and monitoring, but doing so typically involves extensive field data collection that yields relatively crude structural outputs, e.g., plot- or site-level metrics. This study assessed the utility of airborne light detection and ranging (lidar) waveform features to explain structural and biomass variation in a savanna ecosystem across a land-use gradient. The ability of aboveground waveform lidar features to model field-based woody and herbaceous biomass measurements was evaluated statistically by regression models using forward variable selection. Waveform features explained 76% of the variation in woody biomass in a regulated communal land use area (RMSE = 29.0 kg). The waveform features were also correlated to herbaceous measurements in the same land-use area, with increased correlations at higher biomass levels. These results indicate that small-footprint waveform lidar data potentially can be used as a single modality to describe heterogeneous woody cover in a savanna environment; however, further research is warranted during the full growing season to fully evaluate its performance.
Year
DOI
Venue
2014
10.1109/JSTARS.2013.2274761
Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, IEEE Journal of  
Keywords
Field
DocType
ecology,land use,optical radar,remote sensing by radar,vegetation mapping,rmse,aboveground waveform lidar features,airborne light detection and ranging waveform feature utility,biomass estimation,biomass variation,crude structural outputs,ecosystem assessment,ecosystem monitoring,extensive field data collection,forward variable selection,full growing season,heterogeneous woody cover,higher biomass levels,land-use area,land-use gradient,lidar waveform feature utility,model field-based herbaceous biomass measurement,model field-based woody biomass measurement,plot-level metric,regression models,regulated communal land use area,savanna ecosystems,savanna environment,single modality,site-level metric,small-footprint waveform lidar data,structural variation,structural vegetation component extraction,vegetation biomass accumulation measurement,woody biomass variation,feature extraction,lidar,waveform
Biomass,Growing season,Vegetation,Regression analysis,Remote sensing,Waveform,Lidar,Footprint,Mathematics,Ecosystem
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
7
2
1939-1404
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
3
0.60
1
Authors
14