Articles | Volume 12, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-1629-2015
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-1629-2015
Technical note
 | 
12 Mar 2015
Technical note |  | 12 Mar 2015

Technical Note: Multispectral lidar time series of pine canopy chlorophyll content

T. Hakala, O. Nevalainen, S. Kaasalainen, and R. Mäkipää

Abstract. We present an empirical application of multispectral laser scanning for monitoring the seasonal and spatial changes in pine chlorophyll (a + b) content and upscaling the accurate leaf-level chlorophyll measurements into branch and tree level. The results show the capability of the new instrument for monitoring the changes in the shape and physiology of tree canopy: the spectral indices retrieved from the multispectral point cloud agree with laboratory measurements of the chlorophyll a and b content. The approach opens new prospects for replacing destructive and labour-intensive manual sampling with remote observations of tree physiology.

Download
Short summary
A hyperspectral lidar produces point clouds with multiple spectral channels (colours) for each point. We measured a pine and used the spectral content to estimate chlorophyll content. We validated these results using chemical laboratory analysis of needles taken from the pine. Our prototype has limitations, but still shows the great potential of coloured point clouds. Potential applications include forestry, security, archaeology and city modelling.
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint