2018 Graduate Student Showcase
 

Degree Program

Geosciences, PhD

Major Advisor Name

Nancy Glenn

Type of Submission

Scholarly Poster

Abstract

Plant functional traits such as vegetation structure, density, and composition are indicators of ecosystem response to climate and human driven disturbances. We used small footprint waveform lidar with an ensemble random forest approach to differentiate the functional traits in a western US semi-arid ecosystem. We introduced a new gap fraction based leaf area index (LAI) estimator using lidar derived parameters. Results showed 60% - 89% accuracies discriminating plant functional types and estimating shrub LAI. These results imply the potential of waveform lidar to quantify plant functional traits in low-stature vegetation which is useful to assess climate impact in semi-arid ecosystems.

Funding Information

NESSF 17-EARTH17F-0209, NASA TE NNX14AD81G

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