Effects of lidar coverage and field plot data numerosity on forest growing stock volume estimation.

Forest parameter estimation is required to support the sustainable management of forest ecosystems. Currently, forest resource assessment is increasingly linked to auxiliary information obtained from remote sensing (RS) technologies. In forest parameter estimation, airborne laser scanning (ALS) data have been demonstrated to be an invaluable source of information. However, ALS data are often not available for the entire forest area, whereas images from multiple satellite systems offer new opportunities for large-scale forest surveys. This study aims to assess and estimate the contribution of field plot data and ALS data along with Landsat data to the precision of growing stock volume (GSV) estimates. We compared different approaches for model-assisted estimation of mean forest GSV per unit area using different proportions of field sample data, ALS cover data, and wall-to-wall Landsat data. Model-assisted estimators were used with NFI sample data in an Italian study area using 10 RS predictors, specifically the seven Landsat 7 ETM+ bands and three fine-resolution metrics based on ALS-derived canopy height. We found that relative to the standard simple expansion estimator, the model-assisted estimators produced relative efficiency of 1.16 when using only Landsat data and relative efficiencies as great as 1.33 when using increasing levels of ALS coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]