GIScience & Remote Sensing

ISSN: 1548-1603 (Print) 1943-7226 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tgrs20

The extraction of forest CO2 storage capacity using

high-resolution airborne lidar data

Sang Jin Lee , Jung Rack Kim & Yun Soo Choi

To cite this article: Sang Jin Lee , Jung Rack Kim & Yun Soo Choi (2013) The extraction of forest
CO2 storage capacity using high-resolution airborne lidar data, GIScience & Remote Sensing,
50:2, 154-171, DOI: 10.1080/15481603.2013.786957

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15481603.2013.786957

Published online: 14 Jun 2013.

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GIScience & Remote Sensing, 2013
Vol. 50, No. 2, 154–171, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15481603.2013.786957

The extraction of forest CO2 storage capacity using high-resolution

airborne lidar data
Sang Jin Lee†, Jung Rack Kim* and Yun Soo Choi

Department of Geoinformatics, University of Seoul, Siripdae-gil 13, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul

130-743, South Korea
(Received 16 July 2012; final version received 13 February 2013)

With the increasing concern about global warming, the estimation of the CO2 sink
capacity of the biosphere has become one of the main issues of remote sensing studies.
This paper discusses the estimation of CO2 storage capacity in forests using airborne
light detection and ranging (lidar) data. To achieve the correct biomass estimation, a
processing chain consisting of the bare earth digital terrain model (DTM) extraction
and individual tree crown segmentation has been constructed and applied to the dense
airborne lidar data. As a result of the sample processing, the reliable bare earth DTM
and tree boundaries were extracted in the study area with an overall accuracy of 71%.
The total estimated CO2 storage capacity in the study area using the extracted tree
crown structures is accurate, with only a 7% error level compared to field
measurements.
Keywords: lidar; filtering; tree crown detection; biomass; CO2 storage

Introduction
Global warming is a significant environmental threat that is primarily being caused by
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from anthropogenic activities such as the increased use
of fossil fuels over the past century (IPCC 2007). Thus, the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) established the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988 to provide comprehensive
scientific assessments of climate change and its potential impacts. Under the international
environmental treaty called the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC), which took effect in 1994, the Kyoto Protocol was issued in 1997
as the most predominant action plan for reducing GHG emissions worldwide.
Forests play an important role in regulating the balance of GHGs in the atmosphere
not only as a sink for GHG emissions due to their use of CO2 in photosynthesis, but also
as a source for CO2 emissions via wildfires. As such, estimations of the extent of forest
resources, particularly in terms of biomass, have been attempted in a large number of
scientific surveys. In spite of the growing need to measure forest biomass, existing
approaches usually depend on field surveys that are labor-intensive, costly, and time-
consuming to implement. Moreover, the difficulty in assessing the biomass objectively is
not easily addressed even with a highly detailed survey, as the method is likely to contain
error originating from subjective judgments, overlap, and omissions during the field
measurements in many sampling areas.

*Corresponding author. Email: kjrr001@gmail.com †Current address: Korean National Disaster

Management Institute, Seoul, Korea

© 2013 Taylor & Francis

 GIScience & Remote Sensing 155

It has been documented that airborne light detection and ranging (lidar) is superior in
terms of accuracy for investigating forestry as compared with the other technologies, such
as aerial photos and interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) (Baltsavias 1999;
Hyyppä et al. 2000). The use of lidar surveys has proven to be extremely valuable in the
generation of high spatial resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) and for some
applications such as building extraction in urban environments. Naturally, lidar is also a
very valuable tool for use in forestry applications, especially considering that it has a high
spatial resolving power that enables it to produce dense 3-D point clouds that can identify
individual tree crowns. Indeed, it is currently the most effective tool to assess forest
biomass after the suitable algorithms have been applied.
In this study, we developed an efficient method, based on the IPCC’s Good Practice
Guideline (GPG), for estimating forest biomass and CO2 stocks using lidar data. First, we
applied a filtering step for classifying terrain and vegetation lidar points, then a digital
terrain model (DTM) and a digital surface model (DSM) were established. Next, a canopy
height model (CHM), which enabled the counting of individual trees in a certain area was
used, and tree parameters such as the tree height, crown diameter, and 3-D crown shape,
was established by consecutively mining the data with machine vision techniques. Finally,
empirical regression equations were used to estimate other forest parameters such as tree
volume, diameter at breast height (DBH), and biomass, which is reflective of the CO2
stocks associated with the forest. Our research is different from previous studies in terms
of the algorithms that were employed. We used algorithms that employ an iterative split-
and-merge technique to maximize the overall detection efficiencies for tree crown num-
bers and shapes. Thus, the error range of the estimated biomass was reduced by the use of
such an iterative machine vision method. In addition to making algorithmic improvements
aimed at achieving better accuracy, the regression model that was used to extract the
biomass data from the detected tree crown information was optimized by comparing with
ground reference data. Hence, this study implemented an all-in-one processing chain
consisting of DTM filtering, tree crown delineation, and regression modeling techniques
to extract biomass data from lidar point clouds.
The first section of this paper is devoted to a review of biomass estimation based on
lidar data. The algorithms used to develop the CHM and estimate biomass are then
introduced. Finally, the lidar assessment results are described along with the ground
reference data that were acquired through comprehensive field measurements. Overall,
this work describes a quantitative method for extracting forest biomass and CO2 stock
information from small-footprint topographic lidar data.

Biosmass estimation by remote sensor data

The biomass in a vegetation canopy consists of two parts: the above ground biomass
(AGB) and the below ground biomass (BGB). Because of the technical difficulty asso-
ciated with establishing precise measurements of BGB, AGB has become the primary
focus of biosphere research. At first, field measurements were proposed as being the most
reliable approach for estimating AGB. However, field-based measurements of total
biomass over nationwide scales are cost-prohibitive. Alternatively, GIS-based approaches
that employ a variety of auxiliary spatial data, such as on the elevation, slope, soil, and
precipitation, may be applicable for obtaining indirect estimates of biomass as was shown
in Brown and Gaston (1995). Even though GIS-based approaches show potential for
estimating biomass over extensive global target areas, there are some unavoidable uncer-
tainties associated with the use of these types of biomass estimates. For example, the
156 S.J. Lee et al.

correlation between the auxiliary spatial data and the growth of the vegetation may be
weak. In consideration of the problems associated with GIS-based approaches, the
exploitation of remotely sensed data sets has been proposed as the most practical means
for estimating biomass. Since remote sensing data can be acquired quickly and at low
cost, the application of this data to determine biomass over large target areas has many
merits (such as quicker and less expensive biomass estimation) compared to the other
approaches described above. Moreover, recent improvements in the temporal, spectral,
and spatial resolving power of contemporary remotely sensed data have allowed for the
development of reliable biomass products that can fulfill socio-economic requirements for
obtaining accurate and timely data regarding climate change.
The remote sensing approaches that have been used to estimate biomass can be roughly
classified into two categories: the direct measurement of geometric tree parameters and the
indirect estimation of biomass through physical properties such as spectral responses (Fraser
and Li 2002; Dong et al. 2003), image textures (Lu and Batistella 2005), and electromagnetic
backscattering coefficients (Luckman et al. 1998; Austin, Mackey, and Van Niel 2003). Both
medium (<100 m) and low-resolution (1 km) optical images and synthetic aperture radar
(SAR) products are frequently employed in the indirect approaches because biomass extraction
over an extensive target area is only feasible with either SAR and/or spaceborne optical
imagery. In the indirect approach, regressions between biomass and the remotely sensed
physical properties, such as spectral responses, reflectance, and backscattering, have been
explored with various mathematical techniques such as multiple regression analysis (Zheng
et al. 2004), the k-nearest neighbor approach (Fazakas, Nilsson, and Olsson 1999), and neural
network analysis (Fraser and Li 2002). Despite these advances, the indirect approaches with
medium and low spatial resolution remote sensing data have frequently failed to attain
sufficiently high data accuracy for various reasons including data saturation, low signal-to-
noise ratios, and calibration issues associated with the employed data sets.
In contrast, the direct extraction of individual tree information from high-resolution
remote sensing data sets, such as those from aerial photos (Tiwari and Singh 1984),
IKONOS satellite images (Thenkabail et al. 2004; Kim and Muller 2011), and airborne
lidar (Popescu, Wynne, and Nelson 2003; Popescu 2007), has become more popular in
biomass studies due to the intrinsically high accuracy of the data sets and recent
improvements in the temporal and spatial resolution of commercial remote sensor data.
The accuracy of biomass estimates derived from direct tree delineation methods,
especially those that employ lidar, is highly dependent on the algorithmic bases that are
used. For example, a comparison study of lidar tree crown detection methods conducted
by Kaartinen et al. (2012) showed accuracies ranging from 20% to 102% in terms of the
detected tree numbers. Along with the tree numbers, the accuracy of the data for tree
crown diameters can significantly affect estimates of biomass as shown in Popescu,
Wynne, and Nelson (2003). In addition, the height accuracy of lidar points, which
depends on the type of landcover (Hodgson et al. 2003; Hodgson and Bresnahan 2004),
could also be a factor that significantly influences biomass estimates when studies employ
a direct approach to data collection. Due to these potential sources of inaccuracy in the
resulting biomass data, an alternative method was developed that uses the canopy height
distribution and the quintile function of lidar points to implement a scale invariant model
for biomass estimation (Zhao, Popescu, and Nelson 2009).
It should be noted that the acquisition of high spatial resolution data sets that cover
meaningful target areas is not always feasible for biomass applications due to higher costs
and time constraints. Furthermore, the extraction of biomass data from high spatial
resolution remotely sensed data may require complicated machine vision processing and
 GIScience & Remote Sensing 157

consequently, high computer processing capabilities. Biomass estimation based on tree

crown detection with airborne lidar should be developed using robust machine vision
algorithms to extract bare earth DTMs as shown in Raber et al. (2002) and tree crown
splits, which have not yet been fully implemented in commercial software solutions.
An effective strategy that could help alleviate the problems associated with estimating
biomass using remotely sensed data would be to employ the direct and indirect methods
together. For example, biomass extracted from high-resolution remote sensing data over
some test sites can be employed in the less computationally demanding indirect regression
procedures. From past studies, it is clear that lidar processing has the highest level of
accuracy among all of the high spatial resolution direct approaches for biomass estima-
tion. This is because the vertical and horizontal tree crown structures are correctly
retrieved with lidar. Therefore, it is worthwhile to develop full procedures to extract
highly accurate biomass estimates from lidar point clouds. Using such a procedure, highly
practical CO2 sink measurements will be achievable.
As reviewed here, the merits of direct biomass estimation methods, especially using
lidar, can be fully exploited under these conditions: (1) the algorithms used to delineate
tree crowns must be accurate enough so that tree numbers as well as other parameters such
as diameter can be retrieved correctly, (2) the employed height or the image data sets
should be accurate enough for the application of algorithms, and (3) the regression model
used to convert the extracted tree crown parameters into biomass has to be correctly
constructed. It is anticipated that a comprehensive processing chain combining the DTM
construction, tree crown detection, and the regression model of this study together with its
assessment may provide a framework for future biomass estimation applications.

Methods
As presented here, a key goal of biomass estimation employing lidar is to obtain high accuracy in
tree extraction. With that in mind, this study focused on the establishment of reliable DTM
filtering and tree crown split algorithms. Prior to the description of the lidar data processing
algorithm, the study area, data sets, and field survey to collect the ground reference data are
described. Then the interpretation methods of the lidar data for the biomass estimation, consisting
of DTM extraction, CHM generation, and individual tree crown segmentation, are presented.

Study area and data sets description

The study area is a part of the National Arboretum, which is located in Pocheon-si,
Gyunggi-do in South Korea (upper-left: 37° 44′ 52.87″ N, 127° 9′ 50.74″ E; lower-right:
37° 44′ 56.77″ N; 127° 9′ 39.41″ E based on WGS84). This area is composed of nearly all
Needle Fir (Abies holophylla MAX) and even-aged forests. The elevation of the area varies
from 108 m to 139 m above the ellipsoidal height. The lidar data used in this study were
acquired in April 2007 using the ALTM 3070 system. The return pulses of the lidar data
were classified as first returns, last returns, and unique returns. Table 1 shows more
detailed information regarding the lidar data set employed in this study.

Field measurements for the establishment of ground reference

The field work was carried out in July 2011 to generate the ground reference. In this work, we
demarcated the boundary line using a static GPS (Trimble 5700) and a Total Station (Topcon
GTS 750), and measured the position, height, and DBH of each of the trees in five sampling
areas (≈400 m2). Figure 1 shows the demarcated boundary and locations of the sampling areas.
158 S.J. Lee et al.

Table 1. Statement of used lidar data.

FR 148,142 pts

LR 148,065 pts

Return pulse/number of pts UR 8060 pts

Point density FR-LR-UR, 4.4-4.4-0.24 (pts/m2)

Acquisition date April 2007
Acquisition altitude About 1300 m above
X range 37° 44′ 52.87″–37° 44′ 56.77″
Y range 127° 9′ 39.41″–127° 9′ 50.74″
Area 33,607.368 m2

Note: FR: first return, LR: last return, UR: unique return, pts: points.

Figure 1. Test area and field survey.

The locations of each tree were calculated using Euclidean distance and azimuth from
the observation point. The tree heights were measured using clinometers (Tandem Suunto)
and the DBH of each tree were measured using diameter tapes. The descriptive informa-
tion of the tree observation is shown in Table 2.
 GIScience & Remote Sensing 159

Table 2. Collected tree information by field measurements.

Tree height (m) DBH (cm)

Min 18.30 23.90

Max 33.40 51.80
Mean 27.07 35.28
Std. deviation 2.79 6.16
The number of trees 109

DTM and CHM generation

The filtering procedure of the lidar data is essential to generate the DTM, and conse-
quently, the CHM. In this study, the Hierarchical Robust Interpolation algorithm, which
works in a coarse to fine approach using data pyramids and a linear prediction (Kraus and
Pfeifer 1998), was employed to establish the DTM. The algorithm was implemented using
MATLAB to ensure compatibility with other procedures. The filtering processes were
conducted thorough 3 pyramidal stages, and then the final DTM with a regular grid with
0.5 m grid spacing was generated (Figure 2). The obvious improvement of the DTM
quality in each pyramidal processing stage proved the effectiveness of Kraus and Pfeifer’s
approach, even in complicated topography.
The DSM used to create the CHM for single tree detections was established using the
first return pulse from the lidar data. Since the high point density of lidar in this study
(4.4 points/m2) remains the conical peaks not only in a center of tree crown but also in
branches, it consequently produced the overestimated tree numbers in the application of
detection algorithms. In our experience, resampled density up to 1 point/m2 with kriging
is ideal to apply the algorithms and quicken the operations. Thus, in order to describe the
smoothing crown shape, the lidar data was resampled to 1 point/m2 density before the
interpolation was done by using the ordinary kriging method with the linear variogram
model of slope 1.0.

Figure 2. Generated DTM in the process of lidar filtering: (a) the coarse DTM with 10 m
resolution from step 1, (b) the DTM with 2 m resolution from step 2, (c) the fine DTM with
0.5 m resolution from step 3, (d) the final DTM.
160 S.J. Lee et al.

The CHM was derived simply by subtracting the DTM from the DSM (Figure 3). For
that reason, the accuracy of the CHM is influenced by the accuracies of the DTM and the
DSM.

Extraction of individual tree crown

In order to improve the overall accuracy of biomass estimation procedures, highly
accurate tree crown segmentation is a prerequisite. Many algorithms to delineate the
tree crown from 3-D point clouds and/or an auxiliary optical image have been proposed
using various machine vision approaches, such as the local maximum filter (Chen et al.
2006; Koch, Heyder, and Weinacker 2006), valley following (Gougeon 1995; Leckie et al.
2003), and template matching (Korpela et al. 2007). In spite of such a large number of
algorithms available, the existing tree delineation methodologies generally do not provide
adequate solutions for over-/under-segmentation, which may result in incorrect biomass
estimations in the approaches employing direct tree crown extraction. The watershed
segmentation algorithm that is an approach to segment the gray level intensity image
employing the flow over the intensity relief have been frequently employed with an
auxiliary approach, such as a user-specified marker to prevent the over-segmentation
(Najman and Schmitt 1996; Wang, Gong, and Biging 2004). However, that is not

Figure 3. Derived (a) DSM and (b) CHM, which means DSM minus DTM.
 GIScience & Remote Sensing 161

applicable for lidar data sets of forests in which the individual trees are densely attached.
Therefore, we have tackled the over-/under-segmentation problems by introducing itera-
tive split-merge routines following the initial watershed segmentation. The overall algo-
rithms for tree crown segmentation are shown in Figure 4.
At first, watershed segmentation was employed in order to split the valleys between
tree crowns corresponding to step (a) of Figure 4. As an auxiliary mechanism to suppress
over-segmentation, we introduced an evaluation function considering the tree crown
morphology. The fitness values of the tree crowns in this study are shown in Equation (1):

Tcost ¼ Ecost  0:5 þ Ccost  0:5

Ecost ¼ eccfit

distanceðcgeometric ; chpoints Þ
Ccost ¼ (1)
0:5  ðafit þ bfit Þ

Figure 4. The flowchart of tree crown delineation algorithms.

162 S.J. Lee et al.

where Ecost is the eccentricity cost, Ccost is the compactness cost, eccfit is the eccentricity
of the fitted ellipse, afit and bfit are the major and minor axes of the fitted ellipse,
respectively, cgeometric represents the geometric center coordinates of the fitted ellipse,
and chpoints represents the coordinates of the maximum height within the segment.
If the fitness value is below the threshold and the size of the tree crown is larger than the
pre-defined limit (0.3 in this case), it is over-segmented case as shown in step (b) of Figure 4.
Thus, further segmentation is applied by multiplying vertical exaggeration parameters (1.5 in
this case) by the height value of the target prototype tree crown which is corresponding to step
(c) of Figure 4. After further segmentation has been done, the overlapping relationship of the
initial tree crown model, which is produced from the ellipse fitting (Fitzgibbon, Pilu, and
Fisher 1999) from individual segments, is evaluated (step (d) of Figure 4). Then two target tree
crowns are merged, only if the following two conditions are satisfied: (1) the overlapping ratio
is larger than the predefined critical value (0.4 in this case); (2) the fitness cost of the candidate
segments is higher than the average fitness cost of two target segments (step (e) of Figure 4).
Hereby, the employed parameters were chosen empirically for minimizing over-/under-seg-
mented components of this research but it will need more case studies to find robust values
applicable for various tree allometry.
Iterative procedures based on such splits and merges are performed until the further
split-and-merge procedure is stopped shown in step (f) of Figure 4. The evolution of the
tree crown throughout the iterations is shown in Figure 5.
In the next stage, the gavages remaining from the split-and-merge operations were
cleaned up by simple deletion or by assignment to the nearest tree crowns according to
their size corresponding to step (g) of Figure 4. Finally, in each segment, the circle and
ellipse models are fitted again shown in step (h) of Figure 4.
The final fitted tree crowns are shown in Figure 6 and clearly prove that the algorithms
effectively delineate the valleys between tree crowns, minimizing the over- and under-
segmentation. The method is also effective for the delineation of the irregular shapes
frequently observed in the mixed forests, as shown in Figure 7.
Unlike the tree heights, the DBH information of the tree cannot be measured directly
using the lidar data. Therefore, in this study, we calculated the DBH of each tree by means
of the six DBH-height equations, which were derived from the field measurements of the
sampling area. Among those, the parabolic equation was employed to determine the DBH,
because that equation has the highest coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.7574 (see
Figure 8 where R2 = 0.7574).

Figure 5. The tree crown evaluation in each iteration stage: (a) the first iteration stage, (b) the
second iteration stage, (c) the final iteration stage. Note the change of segment within uniform point
clouds.
 GIScience & Remote Sensing 163

Figure 6. Derived CHM (a), final fitted tree crown using (b) ellipse and (c) circle model.

Calculation of the biomass and CO2 storage capacity

The process of estimating the CO2 stocks within the forest is shown in Figure 9.
First, the stem volume should be calculated from the tree height and DBH. Since the
breast height form factors of the tree species were determined through experiments, the
stem volume (SV) has been formulated simply by Equation (2) (Brouard 2009).

π
SVðm3 Þ ¼ ff   DBH2  h (2)
4

where h is the individual tree height and ff is the form factor. The biomass of a tree can
then be predicted from the stem volume together with various experimental parameters.
The first parameter required for converting the biomass into tons of CO2 is the basic
wood density (BWD), which means the weight per volume, including the air gap and
moisture. A study for the BWD estimation with a variety of tree species was conducted by
164 S.J. Lee et al.

Figure 7. Tree crown fitting results in mixed forests; note the algorithms work well in mixed forest
(a) as well as deciduous forest (b).

the Korea Forest Research Institute, and indicated that the average wood densities of the
conifer and deciduous trees in Korea are 0.47 and 0.8, respectively (Sohn et al. 2007).
Thus, these values were employed to estimate the biomass of each tree in our study.
Next, the biomass expansion factors (BEFs) are required in order to expand the stem
volume to the total volume of the tree. The BEFs are classified into the above ground part
and the subterranean part, because a tree is composed of its branches, leaves, and roots, as
well as its stem. The BEF for the above ground part is the ratio of the branches and leaves
to the stem, and the BEF for the subterranean part is the ratio of the roots to the entire
above ground part. Unique BEF values do not exist, due to the intrinsic uncertainties and
the dependence on the vegetation zones. In the case study of a South Korean forest, Sohn
et al. (2007) showed that the BEFs for the above ground parts are 29% for conifers and
22% for broad-leaved trees. The BEFs for the subterranean parts were estimated to be
28% for conifers and 48% for broad-leaved trees. Thus, the entire biomass stocks (BS) of
a tree can be estimated by using Equation (3).

BScon ðtonÞ ¼ BWDcon  BEFcon above  BEFcon subterranean

(3)
BSdec ðtonÞ ¼ BWDdec  BEFdec above  BEFdecsubterranean

where BWDcon and BWDdec are the BWD of a conifer (≈0.47) and a deciduous tree
(≈0.8), respectively; BEFcon_above and BEFcon_subtranean are the BEFs of the above ground
part (≈1.29) and the subterranean part (≈1.28) of a conifer, respectively; and BEFdec_above
and BEFdec_subtranean are the BEFs of the above ground part (≈1.22) and the subterranean
part (≈1.41) of a deciduous tree, respectively.
 GIScience & Remote Sensing 165

Figure 8. Comparison of the DBH–height equations with sample counts 144.

Finally, the biomass of an individual tree can be converted to its carbon content by
multiplying it by a carbon fraction (CF), which was given as 0.5 in previous research
and the IPCC guidelines (Westlake 1966). The CO2 stocks (CS) of an individual tree
can then be calculated by using Equation (4) to convert the carbon content into CO2
stocks.
166 S.J. Lee et al.

Figure 9. Procedure of CO2 calculation.


44
CSðtCO2 Þ ¼ BS  CF  (4)
12

where
44
 CS is the CO2 stocks of an individual tree, CF is the carbon fraction (≈0.5), and
12 is the ratio of the molecular weight of CO2 to the molecular weight of Carbon.

Accuracy assessment and discussion

There are several factors that influence the accuracy of the estimated CO2 stocks. Specifically,
the accuracy of the filtering algorithms is directly related to the DTM quality, and conse-
quently, the estimated tree height accuracy. To assess the filtering results, the developed
filtering module was applied to the reference data provided by the International Society for
Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) commission III (ISPRS 2003). Then the
accuracy assessment was performed using a cross-matrix. As a result of the assessment, the
filtered data showed that the type-2 errors, which are the counts of object points that have been
incorrectly identified as bare earth, were 3.32% in the given test data set (Table 3). In contrast,
the type-1 errors, which are the counts of the bare earth points that have been incorrectly
identified as objects, were calculated to be up to 13.19% in this study. The tree species in the
study area are usually tall so that the ratio of type-2 errors would be smaller than the ISPRS test
site case. Therefore, the underestimation of biomass by the dominance of type-2 error may not
happen as the visual validation confirmed it. The effect of tree species in the filtering accuracy
and the consequent biomass estimation needs to be studied further.
Together with the error source analysis, the DTM quality was estimated by using the
empirical formula (Kraus et al. 2006) given in Equation (5).
 
6
σ z ðcmÞ ¼  pffiffiffi þ 30 tanðαÞ (5)
n

where σ z is the standard deviation in height of the DTM, n is the number of points per
square meter of the lidar data set, and α is the terrain slope.
 GIScience & Remote Sensing 167

Table 3. The result of quantitative assessment of the filtering performance.

Filtered data

Reference data Bare earth Object

Bare earth 61,663 pts 9371 pts 71,034 pts 85.27%
Object 408 pts 11,863 pts 12,271 pts 14.73%
62,071 pts 21,234 pts 83,305 pts
74.51% 25.49%

Proportion of error (%)

Type 1 13.19
Type 2 3.32
Total 11.74

Table 4. Comparison of tree information acquired between lidar analysis and field measurements.

Field measurements Lidar analysis

Measuring method Height (m) DBH (cm) Height (m) DBH (cm)

Min 25.47 23.90 21.54 22.56

Max 33.40 51.80 31.17 44.72
Mean 29.07 39.06 28.20 37.69
Std. deviation 2.09 7.13 2.26 5.24
The number of trees observed 28 25
RMSE Height = 1.4388, DBH = 6.1543

As the result of an experiment, the standard deviation (one sigma) of the derived DTM
varies from –0.0416 m to +0.2794 m. The performance of each tree height and the DBH
estimation method were validated with field measurements using the root mean square
error (RMSE). The RMSE of the tree heights and the RMSE of the DBH were 1.4 m and
6.2 cm, respectively (Table 4).
Overall, all of the assessment results showed that the filtering algorithms worked well
in the test area data so that the error of the CO2 stocks obtained by DTM was minimized.
In the assessment of the tree crown segmentation, 25 trees of the 28 trees that were
measured during the field measurements are detected by the tree delineation procedure in
this study (Figure 10). The missing trees in the tree delineation were mainly caused by
suppressed trees that were not detected with the CHM.
For the entire study area, to calculate the overall accuracy, the omission error and
commission error are calculated based on the conventional approach of error matrix
assessment (Rahman and Gorte 2009) using the reference data, which was produced
manually using an aerial photograph. As a result, 445 trees were matched to trees found
by the lidar data with an overall accuracy of 70%, commission error of 17%, and omission
error of 18% (Figure 11).
While the CO2 stock estimation based on the field measurement was 1113.21 tCO2,
the CO2 stocks from the lidar data was calculated to be 1033.58 tCO2 (Table 5). These
results show that the CO2 storage capacity estimated using the lidar analysis was only 7%
less than the calculated CO2 storage capacity determined by field measurements.
168 S.J. Lee et al.

Figure 10. Estimated tree positions by lidar analysis (+) and field measurements (○) in sampling
area 1.

Figure 11. Estimated tree positions by lidar analysis (dark) and reference tree positions (light)
produced manually.

Table 5. Comparison of CO2 stocks between lidar analysis and field measurements.

Lidar Field measurements Difference

Base date April 2007 February 2011 4 years and 3 months

Area (ha) 1.3 1.3 –
A number of detected trees 535 Unknown –
Mean height (m) 26.25 27.08 −0.83
Mean DBH (cm) 33.69 35.28 −1.59
Timber volume (m3) 726.45 782.42 −55.97
Biomass stocks (ton) 563.77 782.42 −43.44
Carbon stocks 281.88 tC 303.60 tC −21.72 tC
CO2 stocks 1033.58 tCO2 1113.21 tCO2 −79.63 tCO2
 GIScience & Remote Sensing 169

Considering the long temporal gap of up to 4 years between the lidar data acquisition and
the field measurement, the error originating from the failures of the employed algorithms
is certainly negligible. Therefore, these are highly encouraging results for the practical
application of direct biomass and CO2 stock estimation based on lidar measurement and
the machine vision algorithm.

Conclusion
In this study, a complete procedure to estimate the biomass and CO2 stock from the lidar
processing by automated machine vision algorithms was developed. The deliberated
assessments compared with field measurements showed the high reliability of the pro-
posed method. It was proven that the lidar data acquisition and subsequent application of
reliable algorithms have strong advantages of modeling the individual tree shapes, not
only for the CO2 stock estimation but also for the extraction of a great deal of useful
forestry information for other applications.
In spite of the successful biomass and CO2 stock estimation, it should be noted that
the possibility of minor error sources affecting the overall accuracy of tree parameters still
exists in each processing stage, such as lidar filtering, DTM generation, individual tree
detection, and CO2 stocks calculation. The probability of the ill-measurement may be
caused by the noise included in CHM and by the suppressed trees from the lidar data,
which is too coarse to delineate strongly attached tree crowns. It may be addressed by the
data fusion between the optical imagery and the range data of the lidar measurement.
In general, the reliability of direct exploitation of the lidar measurement for CO2
stocks has been well demonstrated, but the cost issue in acquiring lidar data for the whole
target area still remains. Therefore, a future study will be focused on the exploitation of
spaceborne Earth Observation assets referenced by the lidar measurement for the biomass
and CO2 stocks application. On the other hand, the procedure in this study will be updated
for a more complicated environment such as a mixed forest. In addition, the tree detection
algorithm to reduce the over-/under-estimation of the number of trees has to be further
developed for suppressing even small errors.

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