Application to Forest Management Needs An imaging lidar is the only instrument that can "see" both the finescale vertical and horizontal structure of a forest. The unique design of LVIS also allows it to readily map large expanses of forest. LVIS maps should be able to identify specific ages of forests, such as mature, "old-growth" forests and other habitats associated with sensitive wildlife species, thus aiding in management decisions about future uses of these forests. Most of the information available to forest managers on the structure of forests is very spotty, requiring labor-intensive sampling from the ground. For the USDA Forest Service in California, such field collection is not practical for an area the size of the Sierra Nevada. Consequently, the Forest Service began to investigate remote-sensing technologies at a June 1998 workshop organized by ecologist Carolyn Hunsaker of the Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Station in Fresno, Calif. Lidar was identified as one of the promising technologies. The Forest Service is currently designing a new monitoring plan for the Sierra Nevada Framework Project and is actively investigating lidar mapping. The Forest Service will aid the University of Maryland VCL team in processing the new Sierra Nevada data by supplying new ground data from the areas mapped from the air. Once the LVIS maps are publicly available, Forest Service scientists plan to evaluate how well the maps meet their forest management needs for monitoring large forest areas. next: Lidar Lasers: A Safe Technology back: A New Application of Lidar Technologies		Vegetation Canopy Lidar Science Objectives A New Application of Lidar Technology Applications to Forest Management Needs Lidar Lasers: A Safe Technology Top Left: The Vegetation Canopy Lidar (VCL) mission will map forest canopies, distinguishing between the simple canopy of young forests and the complex, multi-layered structure of old-growth forests. (Photograph courtesy of the University of Maryland)

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