ERS-1/2 tandem coherence is known to allow forest stem volume mapping with reasonable accuracy. Largescale forest mapping, however, is hindered by the variability of coherence with meteorological, environmental and orbital acquisition conditions. The traditional way of stem volume retrieval is based on the training of models, relating coherence to stem volume, using forest inventory which is ge...

the hyrcanian forests have been highly exploited in recent decades by human impacts. easy access, abundance and variety of valuable forest yields have led to population growth density, creation of new residential areas and deforestation activities. change detection is one of the main methods of management and evaluation of natural resources. we investigated forest changes in southern surroundin...

This study evaluated the accuracy of boreal forest above-ground biomass (AGB) and volume estimates obtained using airborne laser scanning (ALS) and RapidEye data in a two-phase sampling method. Linear regression-based estimation was employed using an independent validation dataset and the performance was evaluated by assessing the bias and the root mean square error (RMSE). In the phase I, ALS ...

The national Forest Health Monitoring (FHM) program conducted a remeasurement study in 1999 to evaluate the usefulness and feasibility of collecting data needed for investigating carbon budgets in forests. This study indicated that FHM data are adequate for detecting a 20% change over 10 years (2% change per year) in percent total carbon and carbon content (MgC/ha) when sampling by horizon, wit...

Micro-scale changes in earthworm communities and ground cover types were studied along five transect lines in an unmanaged beech forest (Fontainebleau forest, France). Spatial patterns were interpreted to the light of interactions between earthworm species and forest architecture, ground vegetation and quantity as well as quality of litter. The anecic Lumbricus terrestris was associated with pa...

Remnant tree presence affects forest recovery after slashand-burn agriculture. However, little is known about its effect on above-ground carbon stocks, especially in Africa. We focused our study on Sierra Leone, part of the Upper Guinean forests, an important centre of endemism threatened by encroachment and forest degradation. We studied 99 (20-m-radius) plots aged 2–10 years with and without ...

This paper presents results from two simulation studies which attempt to measure forest height with full waveform lidar. MonteCarlo ray tracing is used to simulate a full waveform lidar response over explicitly represented 3D forest models. Gaussian decomposition and multi-spectral edge detection are used to estimate tree top and ground positions over a range of forest ages, stand densities and...

Automated early fire detection systems have recently received a significant amount of attention due to their importance in protecting the global environment. Some emergent technologies such as ground-based, satellite-based remote sensing and distributed sensor networks systems have been used to detect forest fires in the early stages. In this study, a radio-acoustic sounding system with fine sp...

Currently, information on forest biomass is available from a mixture of sources, including in-situ measurements, national forest inventories, administrative-level statistics, model outputs and regional satellite products. These data tend to be regional or national, based on different methodologies and not easily accessible. One of the few maps available is the Global Forest Resources Assessment...

Downed logs on the forest floor provide habitat for species, fuel for forest fires, and function as a key component of forest nutrient cycling and carbon storage. Ground-based field surveying is a conventional method for mapping and characterizing downed logs but is limited. In addition, optical remote sensing methods have not been able to map these ground targets due to the lack of optical sen...