Maria Kampouri (recipient of three LASmoons)
Remote Sensing Laboratory, School of Rural & Surveying Engineering
National and Technical University of Athens, GREECE
Background:
The Aralar Natural Park, famous for its stunning landscapes, is located in the southeast of the province of Gipuzkoa, sharing a border with the neighboring province of Navarre. Inside the park there are nature reserves of exceptional importance, such as beech woods, large number of yew trees, very singular species of flora and fauna and areas of exceptional geological interest. Griffon vultures, Egyptian vultures, golden eagles and even bearded vultures (also known as lammergeier) can be seen flying over this area. European minks and Pyrenean desmans can be found in the streams and rivers that descend from the mountain tops.
The concept of biodiversity is based on inter- and intra-species genetic variation and has been evolving over the past 25 years. The importance of mapping biodiversity in order to plan its conservation, as well as identifying patterns in endemism and biodiversity hot-spots, have been pillars for EU and global environmental policy and legislation. The coupling of remote sensing and field data can increase reliability, periodicity and reproduce-ability of ecosystem process and biodiversity monitoring, leading to an increasing interest in environmental monitoring, using data for the same areas over time. Natural processes and complexity are best explored by observing ecosystems or landscapes through scale alteration, using spatial analysis tools, such as LAStools.
Goal:
The aim of this study is to investigate the potential use of LiDAR data for the identification and determination of forest patches of particular interest, with respect to ecosystem dynamics and biodiversity and to produce a relevant biodiversity map, based on Simpson’s Diversity Index for Aralar Natural Park.
Data:
+ approximately 123 km^2 of LiDAR in 1km x 1km LAS tiles
+ Average point density: 2 pts/m^2
+ Spatial referencing system: ETRS89 UTM zone 30N with elevations on the EGM08 geoid. Data from LiDAR flights are These files were obtained from the LiDAR flight carried out in 2008 by the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa and the LiDAR flights of the Basque Government.
LAStools processing:
1) data quality checking [lasinfo, lasoverlap, lasgrid, lasreturn]
2) classify ground and non-ground points [lasground]
3) remove low and high outliers [lasheight, lasnoise]
4) identify buildings within the study area [lasclassify]
5) create DTM tiles with 0.5 step in ‚.bil‘ format [las2dem]
6) create DSM tiles with 0.5 step in ‚.bil‘ format [las2dem]
7) create a normalized point cloud [lasheight]
8) create a highest-return canopy height model (CHM) [lasthin, las2dem]
9) create a pit-free (CHM) with the spike-free algorithm [las2dem]
10) create various rasters with forest metrics [lascanopy]
The generated elevation and forest metrics rasters are then combined with satellite data to create a biodiversity map, using Simpson’s Diversity Index.