Improving Canopy Vertical Structure Measurements with Dual-Wavelength Laser Scanning

Abstract:

Forest canopy structure regulates radiation interception through the canopy, affects the canopy microclimate, and consequently influences the energy, water, and carbon fluxes between soil, vegetation and atmosphere through its interaction with leaf physiological functioning. To observe vertical canopy forest structure in finer and more accurate detail, we retrieved vertical profiles of leaf and woody components separately with a terrestrial laser scanner, the Dual-Wavelength Echidna Lidar (DWEL). DWEL scans of a hardwood site at the Harvard Forest, Petersham, Massachusetts, USA, in early May and in late September in 2014, revealed the spatial heterogeneity of the canopy vertical structure of the two vegetation components: leaves and woody materials. The DWEL collects simultaneous scans of forests with two lasers at different wavelengths, 1064 nm (NIR) and 1548 nm (SWIR). Power returned from leaves is much lower than from woody materials such as trunks and branches at the SWIR wavelength due to the liquid water absorption by leaves, whereas returned power at the NIR wavelength is similar from both leaves and woody materials. This spectral contrast between leaves and woody materials, along with spatial context information. discriminates leaves and woody materials accurately in 3-D space, thus allowing the measurement of separate leaf and woody area profiles. We also captured the change in the canopy vertical structure over the seven years by a comparison between the current measurements by the DWEL in 2014 and past measurements in 2007 at the same site by the DWEL’s predecessor, a single-wavelength terrestrial lidar, the Echidna Validation Instrument. The comparison also demonstrates the advantage of dual-wavelength laser scanning by the DWEL for canopy structure measurements.