Estimation of aerial biomass using discrete-wave LiDAR data in combination with different vegetation indices in plantations of Pinus radiata (D. DON), Región del Maule, Chile.

Abstract

The aerial biomass of Pinus radiata plantations in the Región del Maule, Chile, was estimated from linear models using databases of LiDAR and multispectral LANDSAT ETM+. Six descriptive height variables were obtained from the LiDAR point cloud; the 25%, 50%, 75%, 95% and 100% percentiles and the mean height. Two variables associated with the density of points were also obtained, which relate the returns between fixed weighted intervals calculated as a function of the observed biomass. For multispectral variables we used NDVI, corrected NVDI (NDVIc) and the "Tasseled Cap" components brilliance, greenness and humidity. The results showed coefficients of determination (R 2 ) between 0.801 and 0.814, with errors between 36.07 and 36.11 ton ha -1 for the models generated using height percentiles, and R 2 from 0.807 to 0.823 with errors between 36.06 and 36.84 ton ha-1 for transformed LiDAR data. Finally, the stepwise model using all available variables had R2 of 0.821-0.835 with errors of 34.28 -36.31 ton ha-1.Key words: ALS, forest above ground biomass, point cloud density, LiDAR, NDVIc.

Factibilidad técnico-económica de implementar LIDAR en una empresa forestal

“…LiDAR es una tecnología que proporciona muchas ventajas operativas y económicas en la captura de datos de terreno, y que se destaca por otras disciplinas como la topografía o la fotogrametría (Ojeda, Vallejo, Hernández y Álvarez, 2007;Tomé et al, 2013;Valencia et al, 2014). No obstante, como lo indica Dassot et al, (2011), LiDAR ya alcanzó madurez en su desarrollo a nivel de hardware, aunque continúa siendo muy costoso, y además ahora se requieren mejores herramientas de software para aprovechar todo su potencial en captura de datos.…”

“…En Chile, Medina (2011) evaluó la exactitud del método LiDAR para estimar la altura de árboles de Pinus radiata D. Don. Asimismo, Valencia et al (2014) desarrollaron modelos para estimar la biomasa aérea en bosques de P. radiata en la región del Maule, a partir de datos LiDAR.…”