Forest canopy height extraction in rugged areas with ICESat/GLAS data

Abstract

Geoscience Laser Altimeter System data have been widely used in forest canopy height extraction. It is still challenging over rugged areas. In this paper, we propose a forest canopy height extraction method consisting of the Savitzky-Golay filter and fitting, Sigbeg determination based on the fitting results, and slope correction for rugged areas, particularly for slopes ranging from 5° to 15°. The method was applied to both the Xinlin Forest, China, and Santa Rosa National Park, Costa Rica. The performance of this method was validated by field measurement and Laser Vegetation Imaging Sensor data. The goodness of fit (R2) reached 0.73 and 0.78, respectively, and root-mean-squared errors (RMSEs) were 2.27 and 3.75 m over the two areas, respectively. © 2013 IEEE.