SCIENCE@home

Estimating Ladder Fuels: A New Approach Combining Field Photography with LiDAR

H. Kramer,B. Collins,Frank K. Lake,Marek K. Jakubowski,S. Stephens,M. Kelly

Published 2016 in Remote Sensing

ABSTRACT

Forests historically associated with frequent fire have changed dramatically due to fire suppression and past harvesting over the last century. The buildup of ladder fuels, which carry fire from the surface of the forest floor to tree crowns, is one of the critical changes, and it has contributed to uncharacteristically large and severe fires. The abundance of ladder fuels makes it difficult to return these forests to their natural fire regime or to meet management objectives. Despite the importance of ladder fuels, methods for quantifying them are limited and imprecise. LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), a form of active remote sensing, is able to estimate many aspects of forest structure across a landscape. This study investigates a new method for quantifying ladder fuel in the field (using photographs with a calibration banner) and remotely (using LiDAR data). We apply these new techniques in the Klamath Mountains of Northern California to predict ladder fuel levels across the study area. Our results demonstrate a new utility of LiDAR data to identify fire hazard and areas in need of fuels reduction.

PUBLICATION RECORD

  • Publication year

    2016

  • Venue

    Remote Sensing

  • Publication date

    2016-09-17

  • Fields of study

    Computer Science, Environmental Science

  • Identifiers
    DOI 10.3390/rs8090766
  • External record

    Open on Semantic Scholar

  • Source metadata

    Semantic Scholar

CITATION MAP

EXTRACTION MAP

CLAIMS

  • No claims are published for this paper.

CONCEPTS

  • No concepts are published for this paper.

REFERENCES

Showing 1-86 of 86 references · Page 1 of 1

CITED BY

Showing 1-33 of 33 citing papers · Page 1 of 1