Remote Sensing Support for the Gain-Loss Approach for Greenhouse Gas Inventories

For tropical countries that do not have extensive ground sampling programs such as national forest inventories, the gain-loss approach for greenhouse gas inventories is often used. With the gain-loss approach, emissions and removals are estimated as the product of activity data defined as the areas of human-caused emissions and removals and emissions factors defined as the per unit area responses of carbon stocks for those activities. Remotely sensed imagery and remote sensing-based land use and land use change maps have emerged as crucial information sources for facilitating the statistically rigorous estimation of activity data. Similarly, remote sensing-based biomass maps have been used as sources of auxiliary data for enhancing estimates of emissions and removals factors and as sources of biomass data for remote and inaccessible regions. The current status of statistically rigorous methods for combining ground and remotely sensed data that comply with the good practice guidelines for greenhouse gas inventories of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is reviewed.For tropical countries that do not have extensive ground sampling programs such as national forest inventories, the gain-loss approach for greenhouse gas inventories is often used. With the gain-loss approach, emissions and removals are estimated as the product of activity data defined as the areas of human-caused emissions and removals and emissions factors defined as the per unit area responses of carbon stocks for those activities. Remotely sensed imagery and remote sensing-based land use and land use change maps have emerged as crucial information sources for facilitating the statistically rigorous estimation of activity data. Similarly, remote sensing-based biomass maps have been used as sources of auxiliary data for enhancing estimates of emissions and removals factors and as sources of biomass data for remote and inaccessible regions. The current status of statistically rigorous methods for combining ground and remotely sensed data that comply with the good practice guidelines for greenhouse gas inventories of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is reviewed.Peer reviewe

Estimating biomass and soil carbon change at the level of forest stands using repeated forest surveys assisted by airborne laser scanner data

BackgroundUnder the growing pressure to implement mitigation actions, the focus of forest management is shifting from a traditional resource centric view to incorporate more forest ecosystem services objectives such as carbon sequestration. Estimating the above-ground biomass in forests using airborne laser scanning (ALS) is now an operational practice in Northern Europe and is being adopted in many parts of the world. In the boreal forests, however, most of the carbon (85%) is stored in the soil organic (SO) matter. While this very important carbon pool is "invisible" to ALS, it is closely connected and feeds from the growing forest stocks. We propose an integrated methodology to estimate the changes in forest carbon pools at the level of forest stands by combining field measurements and ALS data.ResultsALS-based models of dominant height, mean diameter, and biomass were fitted using the field observations and were used to predict mean tree biophysical properties across the entire study area (50 km(2)) which was in turn used to estimate the biomass carbon stocks and the litter production that feeds into the soil. For the soil carbon pool estimation, we used the Yasso15 model. The methodology was based on (1) approximating the initial soil carbon stocks using simulations; (2) predicting the annual litter input based on the predicted growing stocks in each cell; (3) predicting the soil carbon dynamics of the annual litter using the Yasso15 soil carbon model. The estimated total carbon change (standard errors in parenthesis) for the entire area was 0.741 (0.14) Mg ha(-1) yr(-1). The biomass carbon change was 0.405 (0.13) Mg ha(-1) yr(-1), the litter carbon change (e.g., deadwood and leaves) was 0.346 (0.027) Mg ha(-1) yr(-1), and the change in SO carbon was - 0.01 (0.003) Mg ha(-1) yr(-1).ConclusionsOur results show that ALS data can be used indirectly through a chain of models to estimate soil carbon changes in addition to changes in biomass at the primary level of forest management, namely the forest stands. Having control of the errors contributed by each model, the stand-level uncertainty can be estimated under a model-based inferential approach

Comparison of Precision of Biomass Estimates in Regional Field Sample Surveys and Airborne LiDAR-Assisted Surveys in Hedmark County, Norway

Airborne scanning LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) has emerged as a promising tool to provide auxiliary data for sample surveys aiming at estimation of above-ground tree biomass (AGB), with potential applications in REDD forest monitoring. For larger geographical regions such as counties, states or nations, it is not feasible to collect airborne LiDAR data continuously ("wall-to-wall") over the entire area of interest. Two-stage cluster survey designs have therefore been demonstrated by which LiDAR data are collected along selected individual flight-lines treated as clusters and with ground plots sampled along these LiDAR swaths. Recently, analytical AGB estimators and associated variance estimators that quantify the sampling variability have been proposed. Empirical studies employing these estimators have shown a seemingly equal or even larger uncertainty of the AGB estimates obtained with extensive use of LiDAR data to support the estimation as compared to pure field-based estimates employing estimators appropriate under simple random sampling (SRS). However, comparison of uncertainty estimates under SRS and sophisticated two-stage designs is complicated by large differences in the designs and assumptions. In this study, probability-based principles to estimation and inference were followed. We assumed designs of a field sample and a LiDAR-assisted survey of Hedmark County (HC) (27,390 km2), Norway, considered to be more comparable than those assumed in previous studies. The field sample consisted of 659 systematically distributed National Forest Inventory (NFI) plots and the airborne scanning LiDAR data were collected along 53 parallel flight-lines flown over the NFI plots. We compared AGB estimates based on the field survey only assuming SRS against corresponding estimates assuming two-phase (double) sampling with LiDAR and employing model-assisted estimators. We also compared AGB estimates based on the field survey only assuming two-stage sampling (the NFI plots being grouped in clusters) against corresponding estimates assuming two-stage sampling with the LiDAR and employing model-assisted estimators. For each of the two comparisons, the standard errors of the AGB estimates were consistently lower for the LiDAR-assisted designs. The overall reduction of the standard errors in the LiDAR-assisted estimation was around 40-60% compared to the pure field survey. We conclude that the previously proposed two-stage model-assisted estimators are inappropriate for surveys with unequal lengths of the LiDAR flight-lines and new estimators are needed. Some options for design of LiDAR-assisted sample surveys under REDD are also discussed, which capitalize on the flexibility offered when the field survey is designed as an integrated part of the overall survey design as opposed to previous LiDAR-assisted sample surveys in the boreal and temperate zones which have been restricted by the current design of an existing NFI

Taking Stock of Circumboreal Forest Carbon With Ground Measurements, Airborne and Spaceborne LiDAR

The boreal forest accounts for one-third of global forests, but remains largely inaccessible to ground-based measurements and monitoring. It contains large quantities of carbon in its vegetation and soils, and research suggests that it will be subject to increasingly severe climate-driven disturbance. We employ a suite of ground-, airborne- and space-based measurement techniques to derive the first satellite LiDAR-based estimates of aboveground carbon for the entire circumboreal forest biome. Incorporating these inventory techniques with uncertainty analysis, we estimate total aboveground carbon of 38 +/- 3.1 Pg. This boreal forest carbon is mostly concentrated from 50 to 55degN in eastern Canada and from 55 to 60degN in eastern Eurasia. Both of these regions are expected to warm >3 C by 2100, and monitoring the effects of warming on these stocks is important to understanding its future carbon balance. Our maps establish a baseline for future quantification of circumboreal carbon and the described technique should provide a robust method for future monitoring of the spatial and temporal changes of the aboveground carbon content

An International Comparison of Individual Tree Detection and Extraction using Airborne Laser Scanning

The objective of the “Tree Extraction” project organized by EuroSDR (European Spatial data Research) and ISPRS (International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing) was to evaluate the quality, accuracy, and feasibility of automatic tree extraction methods mainly based on laser scanner data. In the final report of the project, Kaartinen and Hyyppä (2008) reported a high variation in the quality of the published methods under boreal forest conditions and with varying laser point densities. This paper summarizes the findings beyond the final report after analyzing the results obtained in different tree height classes. Omission / Commission statistics as well as neighborhood relations are taken into account. Additionally four automatic tree detection and extraction techniques were added to the test. Several methods in this experiment were superior to manual processing in the dominant, co-dominant and suppressed tree storeys. In general, as expected, the taller the tree, the better the location accuracy. The accuracy of tree height, after removing gross errors, was better than 0.5m in all tree height classes with the best methods investigated in this experiment. For forest inventory, minimum curvature-based tree detection accompanied by point cloud -based cluster detection for suppressed trees is a solution that deserves attention in the future.Peer reviewe

Aboveground biomass density models for NASA's Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) lidar mission

NASA's Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) is collecting spaceborne full waveform lidar data with a primary science goal of producing accurate estimates of forest aboveground biomass density (AGBD). This paper presents the development of the models used to create GEDI's footprint-level (similar to 25 m) AGBD (GEDI04_A) product, including a description of the datasets used and the procedure for final model selection. The data used to fit our models are from a compilation of globally distributed spatially and temporally coincident field and airborne lidar datasets, whereby we simulated GEDI-like waveforms from airborne lidar to build a calibration database. We used this database to expand the geographic extent of past waveform lidar studies, and divided the globe into four broad strata by Plant Functional Type (PFT) and six geographic regions. GEDI's waveform-to-biomass models take the form of parametric Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) models with simulated Relative Height (RH) metrics as predictor variables. From an exhaustive set of candidate models, we selected the best input predictor variables, and data transformations for each geographic stratum in the GEDI domain to produce a set of comprehensive predictive footprint-level models. We found that model selection frequently favored combinations of RH metrics at the 98th, 90th, 50th, and 10th height above ground-level percentiles (RH98, RH90, RH50, and RH10, respectively), but that inclusion of lower RH metrics (e.g. RH10) did not markedly improve model performance. Second, forced inclusion of RH98 in all models was important and did not degrade model performance, and the best performing models were parsimonious, typically having only 1-3 predictors. Third, stratification by geographic domain (PFT, geographic region) improved model performance in comparison to global models without stratification. Fourth, for the vast majority of strata, the best performing models were fit using square root transformation of field AGBD and/or height metrics. There was considerable variability in model performance across geographic strata, and areas with sparse training data and/or high AGBD values had the poorest performance. These models are used to produce global predictions of AGBD, but will be improved in the future as more and better training data become available

Estimating Volume, Biomass, and Carbon in Hedmark County, Norway Using a Profiling LiDAR

A profiling airborne LiDAR is used to estimate the forest resources of Hedmark County, Norway, a 27390 square kilometer area in southeastern Norway on the Swedish border. One hundred five profiling flight lines totaling 9166 km were flown over the entire county; east-west. The lines, spaced 3 km apart north-south, duplicate the systematic pattern of the Norwegian Forest Inventory (NFI) ground plot arrangement, enabling the profiler to transit 1290 circular, 250 square meter fixed-area NFI ground plots while collecting the systematic LiDAR sample. Seven hundred sixty-three plots of the 1290 plots were overflown within 17.8 m of plot center. Laser measurements of canopy height and crown density are extracted along fixed-length, 17.8 m segments closest to the center of the ground plot and related to basal area, timber volume and above- and belowground dry biomass. Linear, nonstratified equations that estimate ground-measured total aboveground dry biomass report an R(sup 2) = 0.63, with an regression RMSE = 35.2 t/ha. Nonstratified model results for the other biomass components, volume, and basal area are similar, with R(sup 2) values for all models ranging from 0.58 (belowground biomass, RMSE = 8.6 t/ha) to 0.63. Consistently, the most useful single profiling LiDAR variable is quadratic mean canopy height, h (sup bar)(sub qa). Two-variable models typically include h (sup bar)(sub qa) or mean canopy height, h(sup bar)(sub a), with a canopy density or a canopy height standard deviation measure. Stratification by productivity class did not improve the nonstratified models, nor did stratification by pine/spruce/hardwood. County-wide profiling LiDAR estimates are reported, by land cover type, and compared to NFI estimates

Semi-supervised SVM for individual tree crown species classification

In this paper a novel semi-supervised SVM classifier is presented, specifically developed for tree species classification at individual tree crown (ITC) level. In ITC tree species classification, all the pixels belonging to an ITC should have the same label. This assumption is used in the learning of the proposed semi- supervised SVM classifier (ITC-S3VM). This method exploits the information contained in the unlabeled ITC samples in order to improve the classification accuracy of a standard SVM. The ITC-S3VM method can be easily implemented using freely available software libraries. The datasets used in this study include hyperspectral imagery and laser scanning data acquired over two boreal forest areas characterized by the presence of three information classes (Pine, Spruce, and Broadleaves). The experimental results quan- tify the effectiveness of the proposed approach, which provides classification accuracies significantly higher (from 2% to above 27%) than those obtained by the standard supervised SVM and by a state-of- the-art semi-supervised SVM (S3VM). Particularly, by reducing the number of training samples (i.e. from 100% to 25%, and from 100% to 5% for the two datasets, respectively) the proposed method still exhibits results comparable to the ones of a supervised SVM trained with the full available training set. This property of the method makes it particularly suitable for practical forest inventory applications in which collection of in situ information can be very expensive both in terms of cost and time

Estimating Forest Volume and Biomass and their Changes Using Random Forests and Remotely Sensed Data

Despite the popularity of random forests (RF) as a prediction algorithm, methods for constructing confidence intervals for population means using this technique are still only sparsely reported. For two regional study areas (Spain and Norway) RF was used to predict forest volume or aboveground biomass using remotely sensed auxiliary data obtained from multiple sensors. Additionally, the changes per unit area of these forest attributes were estimated using indirect and direct methods. Multiple inferential frameworks have attracted increased recent attention for estimating the variances required for confidence intervals. For this study, three different statistical frameworks, design-based expansion, model-assisted and model-based estimators, were used for estimating population parameters and their variances. Pairs and wild bootstrapping approaches at different levels were compared for estimating the variances of the model-based estimates of the population means, as well as for mapping the uncertainty of the change predictions. The RF models accurately represented the relationship between the response and remotely sensed predictor variables, resulting in increased precision for estimates of the population means relative to design-based expansion estimates. Standard errors based on pairs bootstrapping within or internal to RF were considerably larger than standard errors based on both pairs and wild external bootstrapping of the entire RF algorithm. Pairs and wild external bootstrapping produced similar standard errors, but wild bootstrapping better mimicked the original structure of the sample data and better preserved the ranges of the predictor variables

Mapping and Estimating Aboveground Biomass in an Alpine Treeline Ecotone under Model-Based Inference

Due to climate change, treelines are moving to higher elevations and latitudes. The estimation of biomass of trees and shrubs advancing into alpine areas is necessary for carbon reporting. Remotely sensed (RS) data have previously been utilised extensively for the estimation of forest variables such as tree height, volume, basal area, and aboveground biomass (AGB) in various forest types. Model-based inference is found to be efficient for the estimation of forest attributes using auxiliary RS data, and this study focused on testing model-based estimations of AGB in the treeline ecotone using an area-based approach. Shrubs (Salix spp., Betula nana) and trees (Betula pubescens ssp. czerepanovii, Sorbus aucuparia, Populus tremula, Pinus sylvestris, Picea abies) with heights up to about five meters constituted the AGB components. The study was carried out in a treeline ecotone in Hol, southern Norway, using field plots and point cloud data obtained from airborne laser scanning (ALS) and digital aerial photogrammetry (DAP). The field data were acquired for two different strata: tall and short vegetation. Two separate models for predicting the AGB were constructed for each stratum based on metrics calculated from ALS and DAP point clouds, respectively. From the stratified predictions, mean AGB was estimated for the entire study area. Despite the prediction models showing a weak fit, as indicated by their R-2-values, the 95% CIs were relatively narrow, indicating adequate precision of the AGB estimates. No significant difference was found between the mean AGB estimates for the ALS and DAP models for either of the strata. Our results imply that RS data from ALS and DAP can be used for the estimation of AGB in treeline ecotones