Abstract
Forests play an important role in biodiversity conservation, being one of the main providers of ecosystem services, according to the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity. The functions and ecosystem services provided by forests are various concerning the natural capital and the socio-economic systems. Past decades of remote-sensing advances make it possible to address a large set of variables, including both biophysical parameters and ecological indicators, that characterize forest ecosystems and their capacity to supply services. This research aims to identify and implement existing methods that can be used for evaluating ecosystem services by employing airborne and terrestrial stationary laser scanning on plots from the Southern Carpathian mountains. Moreover, this paper discusses the adaptation of field-based approaches for evaluating ecological indicators to automated processing techniques based on airborne and terrestrial stationary laser scanning (ALS and TLS). Forest ecosystem functions, such as provisioning, regulation, and support, and the overall forest condition were assessed through the measurement and analysis of stand-based biomass characteristics (e.g., trees’ heights, wood volume), horizontal structure indices (e.g., canopy cover), and recruitment-mortality processes as well as overall health status assessment (e.g., dead trees identification, deadwood volume). The paper, through the implementation of the above-mentioned analyses, facilitates the development of a complex multi-source monitoring approach as a potential solution for assessing ecosystem services provided by the forest, as well as a basis for further monetization approaches.
Highlights
The literature proposes an entire series of ecosystem functions and services assessproducts are one of the most prominent resources provided by research, forest ecosysment Wood methods
Between the stated by The Economics of Ecosystem and Biodiversity (TEEB), and the paper intends to cover the majority of the functions
This study addressed the methodology proposed by the authors of [116] that aims to predict the presence of shrub layers from aerial-based point clouds
Summary
In the context of climate change, the understanding of forest ecosystem processes’ importance is essential in assuring sustainable management and economic development [4]. Toward this purpose, forest monitoring was established as the main tool for studying the dynamics of forest structure and functioning and its response to anthropogenic influences [3,5]. Forest monitoring was established as the main tool for studying the dynamics of forest structure and functioning and its response to anthropogenic influences [3,5] The necessity of this tool is highlighted by decisional factors’ requirements and forest governance [6].
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