Baptista, M. orcid.org/0000-0002-2287-1881, Livesley, S., G. Parmehr, E. et al. (2 more authors) (2018) Terrestrial laser scanning to predict canopy area metrics, water storage capacity, and throughfall redistribution in small trees. Remote Sensing, 10 (12). 1958. ISSN 2072-4292
Abstract
Urban trees deliver many ecological services to the urban environment, including reduced runoff generation in storms. Trees intercept rainfall and store part of the water on leaves and branches, reducing the volume and velocity of water that reaches the soil. Moreover, trees modify the spatial distribution of rainwater under the canopy. However, measuring interception parameters is a complex task because it depends on many factors, including environmental conditions (rainfall intensity, wind speed, etc.) and tree characteristics (plant surface area, leaf and branch inclination angle, etc.). In the few last decades, remotely sensed data have been tested for retrieving tree metrics, but the use of this derived data for predicting interception parameters are still being developed. In this study, we measured the minimum water storage capacity (Cmin) and throughfall under the canopies of 12 trees belonging to three different species. All trees had their plant surface metrics calculated: plant surface area (PSA), plant area index (PAI), and plant area density (PAD). Trees were scanned with a mobile terrestrial laser scan (TLS) to obtain their individual canopy point clouds. Point clouds were used to calculate canopy metrics (canopy projected area and volume) and TLS-derived surface metrics. Measured surface metrics were then correlated to derived TLS metrics, and the relationship between TLS data and interception parameters was tested. Additionally, TLS data was used in analyses of throughfall distribution on a sub-canopy scale. The significant correlation between the directly measured surface area and TLS-derived metrics validates the use of the remotely sensed data for predicting plant area metrics. Moreover, TLS-derived metrics showed a significant correlation with a water storage capacity parameter (Cmin). The present study supports the use of TLS data as a tool for measuring tree metrics and ecosystem services such as Cmin; however, more studies to understand how to apply remotely sensed data into ecological analyses in the urban environment must be encouraged.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | plant surface area; plant area index; plant area density; interception; runoff reduction; rainfall simulation |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Urban Studies & Planning (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 07 Mar 2022 15:46 |
Last Modified: | 08 Mar 2022 09:37 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | MDPI AG |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.3390/rs10121958 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:184485 |