LiDAR modeling to determine the height of shade canopy tree in cocoa agrosystems as available habitat for wildlife

Abstract

Agrosystems have different canopy strata due to shade trees that serve as available habitats for endangered species such as birds, reptiles, and mammals. LiDAR is a technology used to assess habitat quality as a support for designing conservation strategies. The objective of this research was to develop a model with data derived from LiDAR to obtain the height of the shade canopy in cocoa agrosystems, as a habitat available for wildlife species. Through the data of the height of the vegetation taken in the field and the data obtained from a LiDAR point cloud, the Canopy Height Model was generated. The data from the mapping of the canopy height model of the agrosystems taken as study sites were validated using the coefficient of determination (R2), mean absolute error (MAE), and the RMSE. The mean canopy height at the study sites was 14.63, 13.84, and 13.95 m, and the results of the validation using the model predicted canopy height shows good agreement with the actual value with an R2 of 0.86, and very low values of MAE=1.88, MSE=5.64, and RMSE=2.37, which indicates that they have an acceptable degree regarding the canopy height model between the LiDAR data and the data taken in the field. Research using LiDAR provides useful information to determine the height of the canopy, in the cocoa agrosystems up to 3 strata are found, this is due to the diversity of tree species used as shade, ranging from timber, fruit, ornamental, which are used as feeding, nesting, and resting of wildlife, in the study area populations of howler monkey species that are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), in addition to other species such as bats and birds, with the presence of these species indicate that the cocoa agrosystems, serve as a habitat for a diversity of species, which is why it is important to conserve these agrosystems in the humid tropics.