Estimation of Dominant Height and Site Index for Todo Fir Plantations Using Airborne LiDAR Data．

Abstract

Site index is important in artificial forest management because it indicates how good the growth of a given forest is. However, it is not practical to obtain site indexes in large areas containing many stands because laborious field measurements are required to obtain dominant height from which site index is calculated. To avoid this problem, we developed a method to estimate dominant height of Todo fir plantations from airborne LiDAR data. Because this method does not include the single tree extraction process, which requires high-density LiDAR data, it is applicable even to low-density LiDAR data. With the proposed method and existing airborne LiDAR data, it is possible to estimate dominant heights of Todo fir plantations and site indexes if stand ages are also available.