scholarly journals In situ biomass estimation at tree and plot levels: What did data record and what did algorithms derive from terrestrial and aerial point clouds in boreal forest

2019 ◽  
Vol 232 ◽  
pp. 111309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yunsheng Wang ◽  
Jiri Pyörälä ◽  
Xinlian Liang ◽  
Matti Lehtomäki ◽  
Antero Kukko ◽  
...  
Author(s):  
M. Karpina ◽  
M. Jarząbek-Rychard ◽  
P. Tymków ◽  
A. Borkowski

Manual in-situ measurements of geometric tree parameters for the biomass volume estimation are time-consuming and economically non-effective. Photogrammetric techniques can be deployed in order to automate the measurement procedure. The purpose of the presented work is an automatic tree growth estimation based on Unmanned Aircraft Vehicle (UAV) imagery. The experiment was conducted in an agriculture test field with scots pine canopies. The data was collected using a Leica Aibotix X6V2 platform equipped with a Nikon D800 camera. Reference geometric parameters of selected sample plants were measured manually each week. In situ measurements were correlated with the UAV data acquisition. The correlation aimed at the investigation of optimal conditions for a flight and parameter settings for image acquisition. The collected images are processed in a state of the art tool resulting in a generation of dense 3D point clouds. The algorithm is developed in order to estimate geometric tree parameters from 3D points. Stem positions and tree tops are identified automatically in a cross section, followed by the calculation of tree heights. The automatically derived height values are compared to the reference measurements performed manually. The comparison allows for the evaluation of automatic growth estimation process. The accuracy achieved using UAV photogrammetry for tree heights estimation is about 5cm.


Author(s):  
M. Karpina ◽  
M. Jarząbek-Rychard ◽  
P. Tymków ◽  
A. Borkowski

Manual in-situ measurements of geometric tree parameters for the biomass volume estimation are time-consuming and economically non-effective. Photogrammetric techniques can be deployed in order to automate the measurement procedure. The purpose of the presented work is an automatic tree growth estimation based on Unmanned Aircraft Vehicle (UAV) imagery. The experiment was conducted in an agriculture test field with scots pine canopies. The data was collected using a Leica Aibotix X6V2 platform equipped with a Nikon D800 camera. Reference geometric parameters of selected sample plants were measured manually each week. In situ measurements were correlated with the UAV data acquisition. The correlation aimed at the investigation of optimal conditions for a flight and parameter settings for image acquisition. The collected images are processed in a state of the art tool resulting in a generation of dense 3D point clouds. The algorithm is developed in order to estimate geometric tree parameters from 3D points. Stem positions and tree tops are identified automatically in a cross section, followed by the calculation of tree heights. The automatically derived height values are compared to the reference measurements performed manually. The comparison allows for the evaluation of automatic growth estimation process. The accuracy achieved using UAV photogrammetry for tree heights estimation is about 5cm.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 1859
Author(s):  
Xiangyang Liu ◽  
Yaxiong Wang ◽  
Feng Kang ◽  
Yang Yue ◽  
Yongjun Zheng

The characteristic parameters of Citrus grandis var. Longanyou canopies are important when measuring yield and spraying pesticides. However, the feasibility of the canopy reconstruction method based on point clouds has not been confirmed with these canopies. Therefore, LiDAR point cloud data for C. grandis var. Longanyou were obtained to facilitate the management of groves of this species. Then, a cloth simulation filter and European clustering algorithm were used to realize individual canopy extraction. After calculating canopy height and width, canopy reconstruction and volume calculation were realized using six approaches: by a manual method and using five algorithms based on point clouds (convex hull, CH; convex hull by slices; voxel-based, VB; alpha-shape, AS; alpha-shape by slices, ASBS). ASBS is an innovative algorithm that combines AS with slices optimization, and can best approximate the actual canopy shape. Moreover, the CH algorithm had the shortest run time, and the R2 values of VCH, VVB, VAS, and VASBS algorithms were above 0.87. The volume with the highest accuracy was obtained from the ASBS algorithm, and the CH algorithm had the shortest computation time. In addition, a theoretical but preliminarily system suitable for the calculation of the canopy volume of C. grandis var. Longanyou was developed, which provides a theoretical reference for the efficient and accurate realization of future functional modules such as accurate plant protection, orchard obstacle avoidance, and biomass estimation.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yupan Zhang ◽  
Yuichi Onda ◽  
Hiroaki Kato ◽  
Xinchao Sun ◽  
Takashi Gomi

<p>Understory vegetation is an important part of evapotranspiration from forest floor. Forest management changes the forest structure and then affects the understory vegetation biomass (UVB). Quantitative measurement and estimation of  UVB is a step cannot be ignored in the study of forest ecology and forest evapotranspiration. However, large-scale biomass measurement and estimation is challenging. In this study, Structure from Motion (SfM) was adopted simultaneously at two different layers in a plantation forest made by Japanese cedar and Japanese cypress to reconstruct forest structure from understory to above canopy: i) understory drone survey in a 1.1h sub-catchment to generate canopy height model (CHM) based on dense point clouds data derived from a manual low-flying drone under the canopy; ii) Above-canopy drone survey in whole catchment (33.2 ha) to compute canopy openness data based on point clouds of canopy derived from an autonomous flying drone above the canopy. Combined with actual biomass data from field harvesting to develop regression models between the CHM and UVB, which was then used to map spatial distribution of  UVB in sub-catchment. The relationship between UVB and canopy openness data was then developed by overlap analysis. This approach yielded high resolution understory over catchment scale with a point cloud density of more than 20 points/cm<sup>2</sup>. Strong coefficients of determination (R-squared = 0.75) of the cubic model supported prediction of UVB from CHM, the average UVB was 0.82kg/m<sup>2</sup> and dominated by low ferns. The corresponding forest canopy openness in this area was 42.48% on average. Overlap analysis show no significant interactions between them in a cubic model with weak predictive power (R-squared < 0.46). Overall, we reconstructed the multi-layered structure of the forest and provided models of UVB. Understory survey has high accuracy for biomass measurement, but it’s inherently difficult to estimate UVB only based on canopy openness result.</p>


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 4453-4473 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. K. Kajos ◽  
P. Rantala ◽  
M. Hill ◽  
H. Hellén ◽  
J. Aalto ◽  
...  

Abstract. Proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry (PTR-MS) and gas chromatography mass spectrometry GC-MS) are commonly used methods for automated in situ measurements of various volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the atmosphere. In order to investigate the reliability of such measurements, we operated four automated analyzers using their normal field measurement protocol side by side at a boreal forest site. We measured methanol, acetaldehyde, acetone, benzene and toluene by two PTR-MS and two GC-MS instruments. The measurements were conducted in southern Finland between 13 April and 14 May 2012. This paper presents correlations and biases between the concentrations measured using the four instruments. A very good correlation was found for benzene and acetone measurements between all instruments (the mean R value was 0.88 for both compounds), while for acetaldehyde and toluene the correlation was weaker (with a mean R value of 0.50 and 0.62, respectively). For some compounds, notably for methanol, there were considerable systematic differences in the mixing ratios measured by the different instruments, despite the very good correlation between the instruments (mean R = 0.90). The systematic difference manifests as a difference in the linear regression slope between measurements conducted between instruments, rather than as an offset. This mismatch indicates that the systematic uncertainty in the sensitivity of a given instrument can lead to an uncertainty of 50–100 % in the methanol emissions measured by commonly used methods.


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 5719-5773
Author(s):  
A. Roy ◽  
A. Royer ◽  
O. St-Jean-Rondeau ◽  
B. Montpetit ◽  
G. Picard ◽  
...  

Abstract. This study aims to better understand and quantify the uncertainties in microwave snow emission models using the Dense Media Radiative Theory-Multilayer model (DMRT-ML) with in situ measurements of snow properties. We use surface-based radiometric measurements at 10.67, 19 and 37 GHz in boreal forest and subarctic environments and a new in situ dataset of measurements of snow properties (profiles of density, snow grain size and temperature, soil characterization and ice lens detection) acquired in the James Bay and Umijuaq regions of Northern Québec, Canada. A snow excavation experiment – where snow was removed from the ground to measure the microwave emission of bare frozen ground – shows that small-scale spatial variability in the emission of frozen soil is small. Hence, variability in the emission of frozen soil has a small effect on snow-covered brightness temperature (TB). Grain size and density measurement errors can explain the errors at 37 GHz, while the sensitivity of TB at 19 GHz to snow increases during the winter because of the snow grain growth that leads to scattering. Furthermore, the inclusion of observed ice lenses in DMRT-ML leads to significant improvements in the simulations at horizontal polarization (H-pol) for the three frequencies (up to 20 K of root mean square error). However, the representation of the spatial variability of TB remains poor at 10.67 and 19 GHz at H-pol given the spatial variability of ice lens characteristics and the difficulty in simulating snowpack stratigraphy related to the snow crust. The results also show that for ground-based radiometric measurements, forest emission reflected by the surface leads to TB underestimation of up to 40 K if neglected. We perform a comprehensive analysis of the components that contribute to the snow-covered microwave signal, which will help to develop DMRT-ML and to improve the required field measurements. The analysis shows that a better consideration of ice lenses and snow crusts is essential to improve TB simulations in boreal forest and subarctic environments.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (16) ◽  
pp. 2554
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Merchant ◽  
Owen Embury

Atmospheric desert-dust aerosol, primarily from north Africa, causes negative biases in remotely sensed climate data records of sea surface temperature (SST). Here, large-scale bias adjustments are deduced and applied to the v2 climate data record of SST from the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative (CCI). Unlike SST from infrared sensors, SST measured in situ is not prone to desert-dust bias. An in-situ-based SST analysis is combined with column dust mass from the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 to deduce a monthly, large-scale adjustment to CCI analysis SSTs. Having reduced the dust-related biases, a further correction for some periods of anomalous satellite calibration is also derived. The corrections will increase the usability of the v2 CCI SST record for oceanographic and climate applications, such as understanding the role of Arabian Sea SSTs in the Indian monsoon. The corrections will also pave the way for a v3 climate data record with improved error characteristics with respect to atmospheric dust aerosol.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Merchant ◽  
Owen Embury ◽  
Claire E. Bulgin ◽  
Thomas Block ◽  
Gary K. Corlett ◽  
...  

Abstract A climate data record of global sea surface temperature (SST) spanning 1981–2016 has been developed from 4 × 1012 satellite measurements of thermal infra-red radiance. The spatial area represented by pixel SST estimates is between 1 km2 and 45 km2. The mean density of good-quality observations is 13 km−2 yr−1. SST uncertainty is evaluated per datum, the median uncertainty for pixel SSTs being 0.18 K. Multi-annual observational stability relative to drifting buoy measurements is within 0.003 K yr−1 of zero with high confidence, despite maximal independence from in situ SSTs over the latter two decades of the record. Data are provided at native resolution, gridded at 0.05° latitude-longitude resolution (individual sensors), and aggregated and gap-filled on a daily 0.05° grid. Skin SSTs, depth-adjusted SSTs de-aliased with respect to the diurnal cycle, and SST anomalies are provided. Target applications of the dataset include: climate and ocean model evaluation; quantification of marine change and variability (including marine heatwaves); climate and ocean-atmosphere processes; and specific applications in ocean ecology, oceanography and geophysics.


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