Abstract
Vegetation structure, including forest canopy height, is an important input variable to fire behavior modeling systems for simulating wildfire behavior. As such, forest canopy height is one of a nationwide suite of products generated by the LANDFIRE program. In the past, LANDFIRE has relied on a combination of field observations and Landsat imagery to develop existing vegetation structure products. The paucity of field data in the remote Alaskan forests has led to a very simple forest canopy height classification for the original LANDFIRE forest height map. To better meet the needs of data users and refine the map legend, LANDFIRE incorporated ICESat Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) data into the updating process when developing the LANDFIRE 2010 product. The high latitude of this region enabled dense coverage of discrete GLAS samples, from which forest height was calculated. Different methods for deriving height from the GLAS waveform data were applied, including an attempt to correct for slope. These methods were then evaluated and integrated into the final map according to predefined criteria. The resulting map of forest canopy height includes more height classes than the original map, thereby better depicting the heterogeneity of the landscape, and provides seamless data for fire behavior analysts and other users of LANDFIRE data.
Highlights
Recognizing a need for nationally comprehensive and consistent geospatial data describing wildfire fuels and fire regimes, the Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools (LANDFIRE)program was chartered in 2004 as a joint effort between the US Department of Agriculture and the USDepartment of the Interior [1]
The model run using the 95th percentile height produced a better fit according to the RMSE (5.4 m) and correlation (0.56) values reported by MPFIT and that was the algorithm selected
Not slope-corrected, the tcht approach was still retained as a mapping method and was used to calculate canopy height for all Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) waveforms to use with the regression tree (RT) modeling
Summary
There exist various versions of LANDFIRE data products for all of the conterminous US (CONUS), Hawai’i, and Alaska (see [3] for more information regarding the LANDFIRE product versions). The first LANDFIRE National data products in Alaska were released in 2009, including maps of existing canopy height. The LANDFIRE mapping methods typically make use of available field observations to inform the mapping process. Data from the US Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program are relied on for different aspects of forest mapping. In Alaska, FIA data are available only for the southeastern part of the state, leaving vast portions of the state, especially the boreal forests of interior Alaska, un-inventoried. Field observations from other sources in Alaska are sparse or lack the type of information required by the LANDFIRE mapping methods to be useful
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