An award is made to Boston University supporting a Research Coordination Network to develop a simple, low-cost, tripod-mounted terrestrial laser scanner that can rapidly survey a forest stand and automatically provide an accurate measurement of the amount of aboveground biomass contained within the stand. Broader impacts of this work include encouraging the participation of underrepresented groups through a summer internship, thus serving the broader goal of diversity in practitioners of science. One to three graduate students will be trained in the rapidly developing field of terrestrial laser scanning, providing skills and experience that will help move research and commercial technology forward. Moreover, a widely-available lidar biomass scanner could be the key to better assessment of carbon inventory and monitoring at regional and coarser spatial scales. This would make an important contribution to global carbon management and, in turn, help reduce human impact on climate.
By carefully-designed sampling, often incorporating aircraft and/or satellite images, these measurements can be used to provide estimates of biomass, and change in biomass with time, over large areas of forest. Such information is essential for studies of the carbon cycle and measurement of mitigation of anthropogenic increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide. A second network activity identifies and develops other new applications of this and similar laser scanners in forest ecology and related fields. The research network includes researchers from the United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, and other nations who are presently working with commercial and research-built terrestrial lidar scanners to study vegetation and forest ecology. Network activities include workshops to bring lidar builders, users, and ecologists together; smaller technology developer's meetings; exchanges of graduate students or researchers between laboratories; and laboratory and field standardization and intercomparison activities.
