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Spatial variability in tropical forest leaf area density from multireturn lidar and modeling
Author(s) -
Detto Matteo,
Asner Gregory P.,
MullerLandau Helene C.,
Sonnentag Oliver
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: biogeosciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-8961
pISSN - 2169-8953
DOI - 10.1002/2014jg002774
Subject(s) - lidar , leaf area index , environmental science , tropical forest , remote sensing , geography , ecology , biology
Leaf area index and leaf area density profiles are key variables for upscaling from leaves to ecosystems yet are difficult to measure well in dense and tall forest canopies. We present a new model to estimate leaf area density profiles from discrete multireturn data derived by airborne waveform light detection and ranging (lidar), a model based on stochastic radiative transfer theory. We tested the method on simulated ray tracing data for highly clumped forest canopies, both vertically homogenous and vertically inhomogeneous. Our method was able to reproduce simulated vertical foliage profiles with small errors and predictable biases in dense canopies (leaf area index = 6) including layers below densely foliated upper canopies. As a case study, we then applied the method to real multireturn airborne lidar data for a 50 ha plot of moist tropical forest on Barro Colorado Island, Panama. The method is suitable for estimating foliage profiles in a complex tropical forest, which opens new avenues for analyses of spatial and temporal variations in foliage distributions.