REMOTE SENSING & GEOSPATIAL ANALYSIS LABORATORY Precision Forestry Cooperative, College of Forest Resources Factsheet # 5 Detecting the different nutrition and fertilization levels Understanding multiscale dynamics of landscape change through the application of remote sensing & GIS The susceptibility and habitat of forest stand will greatly change due to the different nutrition and fertilization level given by the forest managers. Although the coniferous trees are ever green through all year, they still undergo the annual cycles of new growth in the spring and senescence in the fall. The Leaf area index (LAI) is therefore variable during the course of a year or between the different years. The high-density laser pulse terrestrial LiDAR offers the ability to capture and detect the LAI change between the different time frames in the forest stands with different nutrition and fertilization levels. It is necessary to monitor the growth condition for forest seedlings with different genetic gain. 3-D Shape, leaf area index (LAI), canopy structure, radiation interception, etc. are all the indicators for the health and species screening for the purpose of forest silviculture. In this project, the terrestrial LiDAR will be used to scan the site at least twice a year to reconstruct and dynamically monitor the growth the seedlings by analyzing the variation of forest inventory parameters and LAI. Based on this work, a more objective and scientific model will be provided for the forest silviculturist in order to select the best forest species in terms the ecological function and economical aspect. The point cloud data overlapped with true color picture The point cloud data with different intensity values THE ISSUE: Dynamically monitoring the forest growth and change condition is very necessary for forest management in many application in terms of ecological research. The issue of this problem is what is the best indicator to characterize the change and how to capture the change of these indicators from point cloud data set obtained from terrestrial LiDAR? THE KEY QUESTIONS: How to monitor the dynamical change of forest stand Citation: Author A, Author B, etc., YEAR. Title Goes Here. Factsheet # ?. Remote Sensing and Geospatial Application Laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle, WA. Digital version of the fact sheet can be downloaded at: http://dept.washington.edu/rsgal/