A simple simulator was developed to test whether airborne laser scanning can be used as a strip sampling tool for forest inventory purposes. The simulator is based on the existing two stages, grid based laser inventory procedure. A population of trees was created using an existing forest stand structure generator. Each tree was represented by means of its 3D-crown model derived from airborne la...

Methods for accurately measuring biophysical parameters are a key component for quantitative evaluation regarding to various forest applications. Conventional in situ measurements of these parameters take time and expense, encountering difficultness at locations with heterogeneous microtopography. To obtain precise biophysical data in such situations, we deployed an unmanned aerial system (UAS)...

Economic and environmental logging is important for sustainable wood production in the Caspian forests, north of Iran. Predetermination of the skid trail network and directional felling is a usual recommended method to reduce logging impact. The aim of this study was evaluation of directional felling and finding factors effective on felling error. Totally 135 trees were selected randomly for di...

This paper investigates the potential of laser scanning data to model forest 3d structure and its spatial pattern. Most of the existing methods for assessing structures in mountain forests are either inventory methods, which cannot be used for spatial assessments over large areas, or methods aimed only at assessing actual wood production. Several new landscape metrics are developed and applied ...

12 Promising results have been obtained in recent years in the use of high-resolution X-band stereo SAR 13 satellite images (with the spatial resolution being in order of meters) in the extraction of elevation 14 data. In the case of forested areas, the extracted elevation values appear to be somewhere between 15 the ground surface and the top of the canopy, depending on the forest characterist...

Three-dimensional forest model is important to forest ecosystem management. Traditional ground investigation requires vast amount of manpower, resources, costs, and time. Hence, it is difficult to promptly obtain accurate information by using ground investigation. Nowadays, Light Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) technology provides high density 3-D point clouds. It can rapidly obtain 3-D informati...

Much of the world's boreal forest occurs on permafrost (perennially cryotic ground). As such, changes in permafrost conditions have implications for forest function and, within the zone of discontinuous permafrost (30-80% permafrost in areal extent), distribution. Here, forested peat plateaus underlain by permafrost are elevated above the surrounding permafrost-free wetlands; as permafrost thaw...

Selective logging of tropical forests is increasing in extent and intensity. The duration over which impacts of selective logging persist, however, remains an unresolved question, particularly for African forests. Here, we investigate the extent to which a past selective logging event continues to leave its imprint on different components of an East African forest 45 years later. We inventoried...

Vegetation, seed rain, seed germination, microclimate, and soil physical and chemical parameters were measured in a recently abandoned pasture and adjacent primary rain forest in southern Costa Rica. The goal of this study was to assess the importance of these factors in limiting forest regeneration in abandoned pastures. Seed rain of animal dispersed species decreased dramatically in the pastu...

Free-ranging ticks are widely known to be restricted to the ground level of vegetation. Here, we document the capture of the tick species Amblyomma in light traps placed in the forest canopy of Barro Colorado Island, tapirellum central Panama. A total of forty eight adults and three nymphs were removed from carbon dioxide–octenol baited CDC light traps suspended 20 meters above the ground durin...