Success in Yosemite is driving the wider use of lidar surveys to support forest health and wildfire resilience, study wildlife habitats, and monitor water resources.
In the latest issue of Eos, Van R. Kane and Liz Van Wagtendonk of University of Washington’s Forest Resilience Laboratory, and Andrew Brenner at NV5 Geospatial, describe how lidar data are providing invaluable information for forestry and fire science. Read the article HERE.
Excerpt: “Lidar allows us, for the first time, to quantify forest structure directly—that is, to determine tree heights, canopy densities, and the distribution of branches and leaves throughout the canopy—a feat previously possible only by painstaking field measurements. Lidar-based studies are beginning to enrich our understanding of wildfires historically, and they are providing forest managers with new tools to use in planning forest restorations and thus to improve forests’ resilience to future fires.”