Patterns of regional site index across a North American boreal forest gradient
Forest structure—the height, cover, vertical complexity, and spatial patterns of trees—is a key indicator of productivity variation across forested extents. During the 2017 and 2019 growing seasons, NASA’s Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment collected full-waveform airborne LiDAR using the land,...
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acdcab https://doaj.org/article/af9cad87023e434a8d5fb281c40416f7 |
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:af9cad87023e434a8d5fb281c40416f7 2023-09-05T13:17:37+02:00 Patterns of regional site index across a North American boreal forest gradient Paul M Montesano Christopher S R Neigh Matthew J Macander William Wagner Laura I Duncanson Panshi Wang Joseph O Sexton Charles E Miller Amanda H Armstrong 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acdcab https://doaj.org/article/af9cad87023e434a8d5fb281c40416f7 EN eng IOP Publishing https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acdcab https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/acdcab 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/af9cad87023e434a8d5fb281c40416f7 Environmental Research Letters, Vol 18, Iss 7, p 075006 (2023) forest growth structure boreal models Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 article 2023 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acdcab 2023-08-13T00:36:54Z Forest structure—the height, cover, vertical complexity, and spatial patterns of trees—is a key indicator of productivity variation across forested extents. During the 2017 and 2019 growing seasons, NASA’s Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment collected full-waveform airborne LiDAR using the land, vegetation and imaging sensor, sampling boreal and tundra landscapes across a variety of ecological regions from central Canada westward through Alaska. Here, we compile and archive a geo-referenced gridded suite of these data that include vertical structure estimates and novel horizontal cover estimates of vegetation canopy cover derived from vegetation’s vertical LiDAR profile. We validate these gridded estimates with small footprint airborne LiDAR, and link >36 million of them with stand age estimates from a Landsat time-series of tree-canopy cover that we confirm with plot-level disturbance year data. We quantify the regional magnitude and variability in site index, the age-dependent rates of forest growth, across 15 boreal ecoregions in North America. With this open archive suite of forest structure data linked to stand age, we bound current forest productivity estimates across a boreal structure gradient whose response to key bioclimatic drivers may change with stand age. These results, derived from a reduction of a large archive of airborne LiDAR and a Landsat time series, quantify forest productivity bounds for input into forest and ecosystem growth models, to update forecasts of changes in North America’s boreal forests by improving the regional parametrization of forest growth rates. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Tundra Alaska Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic Canada Environmental Research Letters 18 7 075006 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
forest growth structure boreal models Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
spellingShingle |
forest growth structure boreal models Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 Paul M Montesano Christopher S R Neigh Matthew J Macander William Wagner Laura I Duncanson Panshi Wang Joseph O Sexton Charles E Miller Amanda H Armstrong Patterns of regional site index across a North American boreal forest gradient |
topic_facet |
forest growth structure boreal models Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
description |
Forest structure—the height, cover, vertical complexity, and spatial patterns of trees—is a key indicator of productivity variation across forested extents. During the 2017 and 2019 growing seasons, NASA’s Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment collected full-waveform airborne LiDAR using the land, vegetation and imaging sensor, sampling boreal and tundra landscapes across a variety of ecological regions from central Canada westward through Alaska. Here, we compile and archive a geo-referenced gridded suite of these data that include vertical structure estimates and novel horizontal cover estimates of vegetation canopy cover derived from vegetation’s vertical LiDAR profile. We validate these gridded estimates with small footprint airborne LiDAR, and link >36 million of them with stand age estimates from a Landsat time-series of tree-canopy cover that we confirm with plot-level disturbance year data. We quantify the regional magnitude and variability in site index, the age-dependent rates of forest growth, across 15 boreal ecoregions in North America. With this open archive suite of forest structure data linked to stand age, we bound current forest productivity estimates across a boreal structure gradient whose response to key bioclimatic drivers may change with stand age. These results, derived from a reduction of a large archive of airborne LiDAR and a Landsat time series, quantify forest productivity bounds for input into forest and ecosystem growth models, to update forecasts of changes in North America’s boreal forests by improving the regional parametrization of forest growth rates. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Paul M Montesano Christopher S R Neigh Matthew J Macander William Wagner Laura I Duncanson Panshi Wang Joseph O Sexton Charles E Miller Amanda H Armstrong |
author_facet |
Paul M Montesano Christopher S R Neigh Matthew J Macander William Wagner Laura I Duncanson Panshi Wang Joseph O Sexton Charles E Miller Amanda H Armstrong |
author_sort |
Paul M Montesano |
title |
Patterns of regional site index across a North American boreal forest gradient |
title_short |
Patterns of regional site index across a North American boreal forest gradient |
title_full |
Patterns of regional site index across a North American boreal forest gradient |
title_fullStr |
Patterns of regional site index across a North American boreal forest gradient |
title_full_unstemmed |
Patterns of regional site index across a North American boreal forest gradient |
title_sort |
patterns of regional site index across a north american boreal forest gradient |
publisher |
IOP Publishing |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acdcab https://doaj.org/article/af9cad87023e434a8d5fb281c40416f7 |
geographic |
Arctic Canada |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Canada |
genre |
Arctic Tundra Alaska |
genre_facet |
Arctic Tundra Alaska |
op_source |
Environmental Research Letters, Vol 18, Iss 7, p 075006 (2023) |
op_relation |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acdcab https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/acdcab 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/af9cad87023e434a8d5fb281c40416f7 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acdcab |
container_title |
Environmental Research Letters |
container_volume |
18 |
container_issue |
7 |
container_start_page |
075006 |
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1776198724750409728 |