Journal article
Individual tree detection and crown delineation from Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) LiDAR in structurally complex mixed species eucalypt forests
D Jaskierniak, A Lucieer, G Kuczera, D Turner, PNJ Lane, RG Benyon, S Haydon
ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing | ELSEVIER | Published : 2021
Abstract
Estimates of forest stocking density per hectare (NHa) are important in characterising ecological conditions and assessing changes in forest dynamics after disturbances due to pyrogenic, anthropogenic and biotic factors. We use Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) LiDAR with mean point density of 1485 points m−2 across 39 flight sites to develop a bottom-up approach for individual tree and crown delineation (ITCD). The ITCD algorithm was evaluated across mixed species eucalypt forests (MSEF) using 2790 field measured stem locations across a broad range of dominant eucalypt species with randomly leaning trunks and highly irregular intertwined canopy structure. Two top performing ITCD algorithms in..
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Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
We acknowledge funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) for Linkage Project (LP160100597), and Melbourne Water for providing the Industry Partnership in the project. We thank University of Tasmania's TerraLuma group for providing the technical skill in building and calibrating the UAS LiDAR platform, in particular we thank Richard Ballard for mechatronics support and Darren Turner for training. We thank University of Melbourne's field technicians for collecting the ground data, in particular Emma Keith, Joseph Hall, and Christopher Lyell.