Laser Scanning in Forests

Dear Colleagues,

The introduction of Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) to forests has been revolutionary during the last decade. Direct and indirect extraction of many tree and forest parameters (economic, ecologic, technical) from ALS data has been shown feasible across temperate and boreal forests. In addition to ALS, also Mobile and Terrestrial Laser Scanning (MLS, TLS) has been shown to have a growing number of application and potential to forest measurements. The number and variety of remote sensing methods and applications of all kinds of laser and ranging measurements to forests continues to increase. In spite of the long implementation times in the forest sector, laser scanning was commercially and operationally applied after about only a decade of research.

Prospective authors are invited to contribute to this Special Issue of Remote Sensing by submitting an original manuscript of their latest research results in laser scanning and forests. Also reviews contributions are welcomed. Contributions may be from, but not limited to:

• New methods in information extraction, i.e. automated feature extraction and object recognition, from all kinds of laser or ranging data to forest
• Developments e.g. in individual tree based or area based inventories
• Developments in laser waveform usage to forest measurements
• New applications and concepts using laser scanning for forests
• Techniques for the fusion of ALS and TLS data with that of other sensors
• Integration of ALS and TLS in practical forest measurements
• Mobile terrestrial laser scanning developments
• Accuracy and performance evaluations

Prof. Dr. Juha Hyyppä
Dr. Markus Holopainen
Prof. Dr. Håkan Olsson
Guest Editors