20. January 2025, 17:00 until 18:00

Master defense Jakob Galle

Other

Assessment of deadwood biomass for the biosphere reserve Rohrach

Deadwood plays an essential role in forest ecosystems by supporting biodiversity, helping to cycle nutrients and storing carbon. Despite its importance, accurately detecting and measuring deadwood remains a challenge, especially in unmanaged forests with dense vegetation and overlapping logs. This study compares four methods for assessing deadwood in the Rohrach biosphere reserve: manual field measurements, the line intersect method, an already developed UAV-based laser scanning (ULS) method, and a newly developed Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) algorithm. The TLS approach uses high-density point clouds to detect lying deadwood. It identifies potential logs by analyzing geometric features such as linearity, surface orientation, and spatial continuity. Polynomial fitting is then applied to estimate the diameter, length, and volume of each segment. The algorithm was designed to handle complex forest structures. Three 12-meter-radius plots were analyzed to evaluate the methods under varying forest conditions. The ULS method was efficient in covering large areas, but was less effective in identifying smaller or obstructed logs. In contrast, the TLS approach provided more detailed measurements, but struggled with heavily vegetated areas and overlapping logs. Manual field measurements, while accurate, were time consuming and less practical for larger areas. The results show that each method has its strengths and limitations. Combining ULS and TLS data may offer a more comprehensive solution, leveraging ULS for wide coverage and TLS for detailed analysis. This study contributes to the development of improved methods for deadwood detection, providing valuable information for biodiversity monitoring and forest management.

Calendar entry

Event location

FH HS 7, 2nd floor yellow
1040 Wien
Wiedner Hauptstraße 8

 

Organiser

TU Wien

 

Public

Yes

 

Entrance fee

No

 

Registration required

No