@article {bnh-8371, title = {Terrestrial Laser Scanning: an operational tool for fuel hazard mapping?}, journal = {Fire}, volume = {5}, year = {2022}, month = {04/2022}, pages = {85}, abstract = {

Fuel hazard estimates are vital for the prediction of fire behaviour and planning fuel treatment activities. Previous literature has highlighted the potential of Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) to be used to assess fuel properties. However, operational uptake of these systems has been limited due to a lack of a sampling approach that balances efficiency and data efficacy. This study aims to assess whether an operational approach utilising Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) to capture fuel information over an area commensurate with current fuel hazard assessment protocols implemented in South-Eastern Australia is feasible. TLS data were captured over various plots in South-Eastern Australia, utilising both low- and high-cost TLS sensors. Results indicate that both scanners provided similar overall representation of the ground, vertical distribution of vegetation and fuel hazard estimates. The analysis of fuel information contained within individual scans clipped to 4 m showed similar results to that of the fully co-registered plot (cover estimates of near-surface vegetation were within 10\%, elevated vegetation within 15\%, and height estimates of near-surface and elevated strata within 0.05 cm). This study recommends that, to capture a plot in an operational environment (balancing efficiency and data completeness), a sufficient number of non-overlapping individual scans can provide reliable estimates of fuel information at the near-surface and elevated strata, without the need for co-registration in the case study environments. The use of TLS within the rigid structure provided by current fuel observation protocols provides incremental benefit to the measurement of fuel hazard. Future research should leverage the full capability of TLS data and combine it with moisture estimates to gain a full realisation of the fuel hazard.

}, keywords = {fuel hazard, fuel structure, occlusion, remote sensing, Risk assessment, TLS}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.3390/fire5040085}, url = {https://www.mdpi.com/2571-6255/5/4/85}, author = {Luke Wallace and Samuel Hillman and Bryan Hally and Ritu Taneja and Andrew White and James McGlade} } @article {bnh-7380, title = {An early exploration of the use of the Microsoft Azure Kinect for estimation of urban tree Diameter at Breast Height}, journal = {Remote Sensing Letters}, volume = {11}, year = {2020}, month = {09/2020}, pages = {963-972}, abstract = {
Forest and urban tree inventory measurements are increasingly adopting Remote Sensing (RS) techniques due to the accurate and rapid estimates available compared to conventional methods. The focus of this study is to assess the accuracy and potential application of the Microsoft Azure Kinect {\textendash} a lightweight depth sensor {\textendash} for outdoor measurement of tree stem Diameter at Breast Height (DBH). Individual urban trees (n\ =\ 51) were recorded from one viewing angle at a distance of 1 m to 5 m away using the various Field of View (FOV) settings on the depth sensor, from which resultant point clouds provided DBH estimates using a circle-fitting approach. The optimal capture method was observed at a distance of 2 m using the binned Near Field of View (NFOV) setting. Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of DBH using this method was 8.43 cm; however, after removing trees with irregular or non-circular stems, this improved to 3.53 cm. Variations in ambient light were observed to have little effect on DBH estimates. The results of this study suggest when in an outdoor environment, the Azure Kinect should be used at a distance no greater than 3 m away, using the binned NFOV sensor setting, for DBH estimates.
}, keywords = {DBH, remote sensing, trees}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1080/2150704X.2020.1802528}, url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2150704X.2020.1802528}, author = {James McGlade and Luke Wallace and Bryan Hally and Andrew White and Karin Reinke and Simon Jones} }