Drone Based Information Fusion for Forestry Application and Conservation

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Inventory, Modeling and Remote Sensing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2025) | Viewed by 283

Special Issue Editors

1. Ecology and Nature Conservation Institute, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China
2. Key Laboratory of Biodiversity Conservation of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Beijing 100091, China
Interests: forest monitoring; landscape dynamics; remote sensing; ecosystem service

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Guest Editor
School of Surveying and Geoinformation Engineering, East China University of Technology (ECUT), Nanchang 330013, China
Interests: LiDAR remote sensing; 3D point cloud analysis; forest inventory
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Guest Editor
Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Interests: land use/cover change; ecological assessment; land degradation; remote sensing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Forest resource surveys play a crucial role in sustainable forest management and ecological environment protection. They provide essential data support, aiding in the formulation and implementation of effective forestry policies, biodiversity conservation, and climate change response. Traditional methods of forest resource surveys require a substantial work force and material resources. The advent of drone technology offers unprecedented opportunities for advancing forestry data collection, especially in areas with challenging geographical conditions that surveyors cannot easily access. Drone remote sensing technology can quickly obtain high-precision spatial remote sensing information of the required areas, enabling precise forest plot delineation at low cost, a high efficiency, and high timeliness.

This Special Issue, "Drone Based Information Fusion for Forestry Application and Conservation", aims to explore the innovative integration of drone-based data with other sources of information to enhance forest management and conservation strategies. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following: (i) filtering methods for UAV-LiDAR data in forested landscapes; (ii) forest monitoring, vegetated surface classification and tree species identification; (iii) biomass modeling, carbon sink, wildfire detection and illegal logging detection; (iv) resource survey, biodiversity assessment and ecological restoration; (v) forestry conservation and management for urban areas, forest parks, natural protected areas or national parks. By sharing the research findings and practical experiences, this Special Issue aims to showcase the latest research and developments in drone technology, fostering a deeper understanding of its potential to support sustainable forestry practices and conservation initiatives worldwide.

Dr. Sisi Yu
Dr. Zhenyang Hui
Dr. Xiao Wang
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • drone technology
  • filtering methods
  • multiply sources data fusion
  • spatiotemporal dynamic
  • forestry conservation
  • forestry management
  • natural protected area
  • remote sensing

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

13 pages, 4157 KiB  
Article
Automatic Registration of Terrestrial and UAV LiDAR Forest Point Clouds Through Canopy Shape Analysis
by Sisi Yu, Zhanzhong Tang, Beibei Zhang, Jie Dai and Shangshu Cai
Forests 2025, 16(8), 1347; https://doi.org/10.3390/f16081347 - 19 Aug 2025
Abstract
Accurate registration of multi-platform light detection and ranging (LiDAR) point clouds is essential for detailed forest structure analysis and ecological monitoring. In this study, we developed a novel two-stage method for aligning terrestrial and unmanned aerial vehicle LiDAR point clouds in forest environments. [...] Read more.
Accurate registration of multi-platform light detection and ranging (LiDAR) point clouds is essential for detailed forest structure analysis and ecological monitoring. In this study, we developed a novel two-stage method for aligning terrestrial and unmanned aerial vehicle LiDAR point clouds in forest environments. The method first performs coarse alignment using canopy-level digital surface models and Fast Point Feature Histograms, followed by fine registration with Iterative Closest Point. Experiments conducted in six forest plots achieved an average registration accuracy of 0.24 m within 5.14 s, comparable to manual registration but with substantially reduced processing time and human intervention. In contrast to existing tree-based methods, the proposed approach eliminates the need for individual tree segmentation and ground filtering, streamlining preprocessing and improving scalability for large-scale forest monitoring. The proposed method facilitates a range of forest applications, including structure modeling, ecological parameter retrieval, and long-term change detection across diverse forest types and platforms. Full article
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