Airborne Laser Scanning – a New Challenge for Forest Inventory and Monitoring of Forest Resources

The use of the newest methods of airborne laser scanning integrated with hyper-spectral satellite systems, provides principally new opportunities for remote sensing of forest cover. High efficiency of laser scanning (up to 100 thousand measurements per second) in combination with sub-meter spatial resolution, high accuracy of a tree stands’ structural parameters detection as well as three-dimensional visualization of the remote sensing data allows to developing effective algorithms for research of forest ecosystems’ dynamics, guaranteeing a real time automatic extraction of forest inventory parameters. Development and application of such high-end forest monitoring methods is critical for boreal zone.