Forest Characterization in the Central Plateau of Yellowstone National Park Using Multispectral High Resolution Digital Photography

Detailed knowledge of forest structure is an important component in research focusing on forest biodiversity monitoring, carbon budgeting studies, fire modeling and forest inventory estimation. In forest inventory mapping, high spatial resolution multispectral imagery are becoming a valuable and often a critical tool to effective resource management planning. In this report, we describe and illustrate the forestry applications of a multispectral digital imaging camera system (Duncan Tech MS31 00) that was experimentally flown over several study areas in the Central Plateau of Yellowstone National Park, in July, 2001. The purpose of this demonstration is three fold; first we will apply geostatistical methods, co-kriging specifically, to model forest canopy components such as height, canopy thickness, species, density and structure; second, we will examine the spectral and spatial characteristics of seedling regeneration in the 1988 bum sites; finally, forest stand characteristics such as stem counts, crown species and amount of deadfall (potential fire fuel) will be estimated for selected sites. Our results will be compared to information acquired from coarser resolution, multispectral Landsat TM data obtained on the same date. + INTRODUCTION