Fourth workshop on TLS in forest ecology

Congratulations to Kim Calders, Sruthi Moorthy, Hans Verbeeck and Miro Demol on organizing a fantastic workshop in Gent Belgium, focussed on the applications of TLS in forest ecology 6-7 May. The meeting attracted around 80 participants and consisted of a series of key-note presentations and open discussions chaired by a rapporteur http://www.tlsforest2019.ugent.be/

The meeting followed on from earlier workshops held in Salford and Tampere, and the Royal Society meeting in the UK in 2017. Gent provided a superb historic setting for the meeting and attracted many of the leading lights in forest TLS research from around the world

Historic Gent from the main canal 

Mark Danson presented a poster describing some results of the work with SALCA at Harvard Forest in 2017 and chaired the session "New opportunities with 3D data" which featured three excellent talks from Phil Wilkes (UCL, UK), Jennifer Adams (ESA) and Sean Levick (CSIRO, Australia).

Look out for a review paper analysing the key messages from the meeting in the near future. The fifth meeting will probably be in 2021.

Mark Danson and co-author Alan Strahler

Spring in Boston

Mark Danson has just returned from a one month study visit to Boston, hosted by Professor Crystal Schaaf from University of Massachusetts Boston. During the visit Mark worked on SALCA data collected in the Harvard Forest field experiment in 2017, had research discussions with Dave Orwig and Audrey Barker-Plotkin at Harvard Forest, and attended the Harvard Forest 2019 Annual Forest Ecology Symposium "Celebrating 30 Years of the Harvard Forest LTER Program"
https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/symposium

Thanks to Crystal for hosting the visit and for her great hospitality. Thanks also to the team and Peter Boucher, Arthur Elmes and Francesco Peri in particular for their interaction and support....and see you in Belgium for the TLS workshop in May!

Snowy Harvard Forest

Spring is coming - let's get scanning

Yesterday Mark and Fadal were back at Silverdale in Lancashire, scanning three oak trees in leaf-off state. These trees feature in our recent paper "Spectral and spatial information from a novel dual-wavelength full-waveform terrestrial laser scanner for forest ecology" publish in Interface Focus and available here:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Francis_Danson

 

The leaf-on data were collected around 18 months ago and in the paper we compare spectral classification using the SALCA Normalised Difference Index (NDI) with spatial classification using Canupo in CloudCompare

 

The new data will allow us to explore further the application of SALCA for leaf and wood classification.

The three oaks in different health conditions

Scanning the 'moderate' condition oak tree

The terrestrial laser scanning revolution in forest ecology...now out!

Our special issue of Interface Focus from the The Royal Society is now published! The issue "The terrestrial laser scanning revolution in forest ecology" features 11 papers from some of the world's leading experts on TLS. Read The Royal Society Blog here:
https://blogs.royalsociety.org/publishing/laser-scanning-revolution/

The contents page is here:
http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/8/2

Mark, Lucy and Fadal have published the latest SALCA paper in the issue and it can be downloaded here:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Francis_Danson

Mark's Presentation at Royal Society meeting

Here is a video of Mark Danson's presentation of the Royal Society meeting held in February this year. Sound recordings of all the presentations are available at:
https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectures/2017/02/forest-ecology/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apkIN-U5jhE

 

Royal approval for TLS research!

Last week saw 70 researchers from around the world attend a two-day meeting at the Royal Society’s country venue, Chicheley Hall, in Northamptonshire, to discuss “The Terrestrial Laser Scanning Revolution in Forest Ecology”. The meeting, organised by Mark Danson, was a Theo Murphy Scientific Meeting funded by The Royal Society and featured a star line-up of keynote presentations by researchers from around the world, with associated discussion and poster sessions. The speakers were drawn from the UK, US, Germany, Finland, Australia, China and Switzerland with other participants representing a further five countries.

Terrestrial laser scanners, or TLS for short, provide detailed three-dimensional measurements of forests, by firing millions of laser pulses up into the canopy.  The information recorded can then be used to monitor changes in forest structure and biomass with unprecedented accuracy. These measurements are set to revolutionize the way in which ecologists measure forests, and will help determine whether forests are acting as carbon sinks, absorbing excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, or carbon sources, adding to the greenhouse effect.

The meeting discussed the technology, applications and challenges of using TLS in forest ecology and showed how it is essential to improve the accuracy of measurements of the biomass of forests so as to better quantify the storage of carbon in such ecosystems. TLS devices can do this by ‘weighing trees with lasers’ based on three-dimensional reconstructions of complete forests. The dynamic nature of forest growth was another important theme with Professor Danson describing how a new TLS device, the Salford Advanced Laser Canopy Analyser, or SALCA for short, can be used to map the growth and fall of leaves in UK woodlands. Outputs from the meeting will include a special issue of the Royal Society’s in-house journal Interface Focus which will be edited by Professor Danson and his colleagues from the Universities of Newcastle, University College London

New video on SALCA research

This is an extract from the new University of Salford, Ecosystems and Environment Research Centre (EERC) video highlighting areas of research excellence. This extract features an interview with Mark Danson and Fadal Sasse in Peel Park on the University of Salford campus.

https://youtu.be/R0X9JYGxEXM

 

 

 

 

The full video can be viewed here: 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyTUGi6fTE4

The terrestrial laser scanning revolution in forest ecology

The full programme of 16 invited speakers for our Royal Society Theo Murphy Scientific meeting in February 2017 is now available at: https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectures/2017/02/forest-ecology/

We have around 50 participants to date and there are still places available. If you would like to attend (there is no registration fee) press the 'Request an invitation' button from the link above.

Poster contributions are welcomed and again follow the guidelines on the Royal Society's web page

PhD for Lucy Schofield

Congratulations to Lucy Schofield who successfully defended her PhD last week. Lucy's thesis is the first study to examine the application of dual-wavelength full-waveform data from the Salford Advanced Laser Canopy Analyser (SALCA) for measuring the phenology of woodland canopies. The thesis was entitled "Quantifying structural change in UK woodland canopies with a dual-wavelength full-waveform Terrestrial Laser Scanner". The thesis will be available as a pdf in a few weeks time. For further details contact Lucy at l.a.schofield@edu.salford.ac.uk

Lucy and SALCA at Delamere Forest, UK

TLSIIG researchers to lead Royal Society international research meeting

Professor Mark Danson, Dr Mat Disney, Dr Rachel Gaulton, and Professor Crystal Schaaf, all members of the Terrestrial Laser Scanner International Interest Group (TLSIIG) have won support from the Royal Society to lead a Theo Murphy International Scientific Meeting to be held at The Society’s Chicheley Hall in the UK in February 2017. The meeting will bring together a star line-up of researchers from around the world to discuss “The terrestrial laser scanning revolution in forest ecology”. The meeting organizers are from the University of Salford, UK, University College London, UK, University of Newcastle, UK and University of Massachusetts Boston, US, and are among the sixteen invited speakers from Australia, United States, Finland, Netherlands and the UK.

Terrestrial laser scanners, or TLS for short, provide detailed three-dimensional measurements of forests, by firing millions of laser pulses up into the canopy.  The information recorded can then be used to monitor changes in forest structure and biomass with unprecedented accuracy. These measurements are set to revolutionize the way in which ecologists measure forests, and will help determine whether forests are acting as carbon sinks, absorbing excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, or carbon sources, adding to the greenhouse effect. 

SALCA range image at Alice Holt, Hampshire

 

The meeting will lead to a Special Themed issue of the Royal Society’s inter-disciplinary journal Interface Focus, with Professor Danson as lead editor. Professor Danson said: “This support from the UK’s most eminent scientific society will be a showcase Salford’s world-leading research in TLS applications in ecology. It will also provide a forum for developing this research field, along with other key players from around the world”. The meeting will take place  27-28th February 2017 and the Programme will be released shortly.

Neural Network calibration of SALCA

This new paper just published decribes our research to calibrate the SALCA data to apparent reflectance. This method is now being applied to the SALCA data routinely to support quantitative analysis of the dual-wavelength spectral information.

To read the paper click this link

Lucy Schofield's three minute thesis presentation

As part of the University of Salford's Postgraduate Annual Research conference (SPARC) Lucy entered the 'Three minute thesis completion' and you can see the video here. The standard of the presentations was very high and Lucy almost won...
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9VJh1hFyqquZHZ6SzBwRjVKa1U/view?usp=sharing

TLSIIG forum at RSPSoc 2015 conference

Mark Danson (Salford University, UK) and Crystal Schaaf (University of Massachusetts Boston) hosted a Terrestrial Laser Scanner International Interest Group (TLSIIG) forum as part of the Annual Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society (RSPSoc) held this year in Southampton (8-11 September). Mark and Crystal described the origins and work of the TLSIIG and a lively discussion followed. On the last day of the conference TLSIIG members Lucy Walker, Mark Danson, Rachel Gaulton and Mat Disney contributed to the excellent "Forestry" session chaired by Professor Ross Hill (Bournemouth University) and all talked about the wide range of research currently underway with TLS.

3D analysis of hedgerow structure with SALCA

Mark Danson was in Cambridgeshire last week helping out with a Newcastle University and Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) project to assess the 3D structure of hedgerows for biodiversity management. Dr Rachel Gaulton and PhD researcher Lyndsey Graham are working with Drs France Gerard and Jo Staley from CEH, Wallingford, UK. The test site on Wimpole Estate is a 200 m section of hedgerow that has undergone a range of management treatments. SALCA was used to measure 18 different stretches of hedgerow, along with Newcastle's Leica scanner. Lyndsey and the team measured a wide range of ecological parameters and will now assess the laser scanner data for characterising hedgerow structure.

Rachel sets up SALCA at one of the hedgerow plots

Lyndsey sets up the Leica

Assessing tree condition with University of Lancaster

A new research collaboration with the University of Lancaster saw SALCA measuring trees at a test site near Silverdale in Lancashire. Jon Murray, a second year PhD researcher, supervised by Dr Alan Blackburn, is testing the use of TLS for assessing tree condition. He has used a Riegl system so far and now with the help of Mark and Fadal he will test the use of data from the dual-wavelength full-waveform SALCA instrument. Look out for results in the near future.

Jon Murray (U of Lancaster) and Fadal Sasse (U of Salford) measure an Oak in "good condition" with SALCA

New paper tests SALCA data processing algorithm

A new paper, led by Steve Hancock, has just been published in Remote Sensing of Environment comparing different methods for intensity estimation from full-waveform lidar data over vegetation. The paper shows, amongst other things, that the the 'sum' method is more accurate than Gaussian fitting when extracting intensity from full-waveform lidar data. Steve was instrumental in developing data processing methods for SALCA and the sum method is now routinely implemented in our data processing.
Steven Hancock, John Armston, Zhan Li, Rachel Gaulton, Philip Lewis, Mathias Disney, F. Mark Danson, Alan Strahler, Crystal Schaaf, Karen Anderson, Kevin J. Gaston, 2015, Waveform lidar over vegetation: An evaluation of inversion methods for estimating return energy, Remote Sensing of Environment, 164, 208-224, 

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2015.04.013

Science Direct link to pdf

ResearchGate link

New researcher joins the SALCA team

The Salford SALCA team has a new member, Fadal Sasse, who joins as a PhD researcher from Libya. Fadal, also know as Sasse, has an MSc in Environmental Science from the Diponegoro University, Semarang, Indonesia, where his thesis was on forest community structure in the Sungai Langat Forest Reserve, Selangor. Sasse will undertake research to better characterize forest structure and species composition using terrestrial laser scanners, initially continuing to work at UK test sites, and possibly developing the work in tropical forest environments. He will use the SALCA instrument and focus on the spectral information available from the dual-wavelength instrument, and aim to combine this with measurements from other TLS measuring in visible wavelengths. 

Sasse and Lucy collecting SALCA data at Delamere Forest

SALCA talk in Brazil

Last week Mark Danson contributed to a workshop on Biodiversity Monitoring organized by The Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The University of Salford team presented their research on various aspects of biodiversity monitoring including Mark's presentation on "Forest biodiversity Indicators from novel terrestrial laser scanners". Other participants included Marcio Uehara Prado and Samuel Nienow from the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversty Conservation (ICMBio), part of the Brazilian governments' Ministry of the Environment. There were around 70 participants from Universities in Minas Gerais and from a range of other national organizations.

Round table at the FAPEMIG meeting

Mark Danson at the FAPEMIG meeting

US National Science Foundation funds collaborative research on ecological applications of terrestrial laser scanning

International funding from the US National Science Foundation (NSF) has been secured to support work to measure and monitor change in terrestrial biomass and carbon in forest environments. Researchers from the School of Environment and Life Sciences will join an international network of scientists developing new approaches to measure forest structure and function using terrestrial laser scanners (TLS). TLS provide detailed three-dimensional measurements of forests by firing millions of laser pulses up into the canopy and recording information that can be used to monitor changes in forest biomass with unprecedented accuracy. Salford has been at the forefront of TLS research for several years and the team lead by Professor Mark Danson recently developed the Salford Advance Canopy Analyser (SALCA), a novel TLS that has produced the most detailed measurements of forest structure ever made.

As part of the $500,000 NSF grant the Salford team will take part in collaborative workshops and TLS inter-calibration activities in the US, and host meetings of the project group in Salford.  Exchange of staff between the US participants at the University of Boston, and University of Massachsetts, and the University of Salford will also take place. Professor Danson is a member of the project Steering Committee that will guide project development. The project is led by Professor Alan Strahler from the University of Boston and includes groups from University College London, UK, University of Wageningen, Netherlands, and University of Queensland, Australia. 

Video Collection

Here's a collection of TLS videos from partners and collaborators

ABC video TLSIIG work in 2013

Forest Research a Year in the Life of an Oak tree for the BBC

Tampere University of Technology 3D forest information

SALCA overview of SALCA in action in Australia and UK