Status and prospects for LiDAR remote sensing of forested ecosystems

Abstract

The science associated with the use of airborne and satellite Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) to remotely sense forest structure has rapidly progressed over the past decade. LiDAR has evolved from being a poorly understood, potentially useful tool to an operational technology in a little over a decade, and these instruments have become a major success story in terms of their application to the measurement, mapping, or monitoring of forests worldwide. Invented in 1960, the laser and, a short time later, LiDAR, were found in research and military laboratories. Since the early 2000s, commercial technological developments coupled with an improved understanding of how to manipulate and analyze large amounts of collected data enabled notable scientific and application developments. A diversity of rapidly developing fields especially benefit from communications offered through conferences such as SilviLaser, and LiDAR has been no different. In 2002 the SilviLaser conference series was initiated to bring together those interested in the development and application of LiDAR for forested environments. Now, a little over a decade later, commercial use of LiDAR is common. In this paper – using the deliberations of SilviLaser 2012 as a source of information – we aim to capture aspects of importance to LiDAR users in the forest ecosystems community and to also point to key emerging issues as well as some remaining challenges.