Characterization and Classification of Vegetation Canopy Structure and Distribution within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Using LiDAR

Jitendra Kumar; Jon Weiner; William W. Hargrove; Steven P. Norman; Forrest M. Hoffman; Doug Newcomb

doi:10.1109/ICDMW.2015.178

Characterization and Classification of Vegetation Canopy Structure and Distribution within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Using LiDAR

Jitendra Kumar, Jon Weiner, William W. Hargrove, Steven P. Norman, Forrest M. Hoffman, Doug Newcomb

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Vegetation canopy structure is a critically important habitat characteristic for many threatened and endangered birds and other animal species, and it is key information needed by forest and wildlife managers for monitoring and managing forest resources, conservation planning and fostering biodiversity. Advances in Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technologies have enabled remote sensing-based studies of vegetation canopies by capturing three-dimensional structures, yielding information not available in two-dimensional images of the landscape provided by traditional multi-spectral remote sensing platforms. However, the large volume data sets produced by airborne LiDAR instruments pose a significant computational challenge, requiring algorithms to identify and analyze patterns of interest buried within LiDAR point clouds in a computationally efficient manner, utilizing state-of-art computing infrastructure. We developed and applied a computationally efficient approach to analyze a large volume of LiDAR data and characterized the vegetation canopy structures for 139,859 hectares (540 sq. miles) in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This study helps improve our understanding of the distribution of vegetation and animalhabitats in this extremely diverse ecosystem.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings - 15th IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshop, ICDMW 2015
Editors	Xindong Wu, Alexander Tuzhilin, Hui Xiong, Jennifer G. Dy, Charu Aggarwal, Zhi-Hua Zhou, Peng Cui
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages	1478-1485
Number of pages	8
ISBN (Electronic)	9781467384926
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/ICDMW.2015.178
State	Published - Jan 29 2016
Event	15th IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshop, ICDMW 2015 - Atlantic City, United States Duration: Nov 14 2015 → Nov 17 2015

Publication series

Name	Proceedings - 15th IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshop, ICDMW 2015

Conference

Conference	15th IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshop, ICDMW 2015
Country/Territory	United States
City	Atlantic City
Period	11/14/15 → 11/17/15

Funding

This research was partially sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service, Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center. Additional support was provided by the Biogeochemistry Feedbacks Scientific Focus Area (SFA), which is sponsored by the Regional and Global Climate Modeling (RGCM) Program in the Climate and Environmental Sciences Division (CESD) of the Biological and Environmental Research (BER) Program in the U. S. Department of Energy Office of Science. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).

Keywords

Clustering analysis
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
LiDAR
Spatial Data Mining
Vegetation map

Access to Document

10.1109/ICDMW.2015.178

Cite this

Kumar, J., Weiner, J., Hargrove, W. W., Norman, S. P., Hoffman, F. M., & Newcomb, D. (2016). Characterization and Classification of Vegetation Canopy Structure and Distribution within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Using LiDAR. In X. Wu, A. Tuzhilin, H. Xiong, J. G. Dy, C. Aggarwal, Z.-H. Zhou, & P. Cui (Eds.), Proceedings - 15th IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshop, ICDMW 2015 (pp. 1478-1485). Article 7395844 (Proceedings - 15th IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshop, ICDMW 2015). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICDMW.2015.178

Kumar, Jitendra ; Weiner, Jon ; Hargrove, William W. et al. / Characterization and Classification of Vegetation Canopy Structure and Distribution within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Using LiDAR. Proceedings - 15th IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshop, ICDMW 2015. editor / Xindong Wu ; Alexander Tuzhilin ; Hui Xiong ; Jennifer G. Dy ; Charu Aggarwal ; Zhi-Hua Zhou ; Peng Cui. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2016. pp. 1478-1485 (Proceedings - 15th IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshop, ICDMW 2015).

@inproceedings{153cecfb05eb4c748e760ce9e830abc2,

title = "Characterization and Classification of Vegetation Canopy Structure and Distribution within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Using LiDAR",

abstract = "Vegetation canopy structure is a critically important habitat characteristic for many threatened and endangered birds and other animal species, and it is key information needed by forest and wildlife managers for monitoring and managing forest resources, conservation planning and fostering biodiversity. Advances in Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technologies have enabled remote sensing-based studies of vegetation canopies by capturing three-dimensional structures, yielding information not available in two-dimensional images of the landscape provided by traditional multi-spectral remote sensing platforms. However, the large volume data sets produced by airborne LiDAR instruments pose a significant computational challenge, requiring algorithms to identify and analyze patterns of interest buried within LiDAR point clouds in a computationally efficient manner, utilizing state-of-art computing infrastructure. We developed and applied a computationally efficient approach to analyze a large volume of LiDAR data and characterized the vegetation canopy structures for 139,859 hectares (540 sq. miles) in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This study helps improve our understanding of the distribution of vegetation and animalhabitats in this extremely diverse ecosystem.",

keywords = "Clustering analysis, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, LiDAR, Spatial Data Mining, Vegetation map",

author = "Jitendra Kumar and Jon Weiner and Hargrove, {William W.} and Norman, {Steven P.} and Hoffman, {Forrest M.} and Doug Newcomb",

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Kumar, J, Weiner, J, Hargrove, WW, Norman, SP, Hoffman, FM & Newcomb, D 2016, Characterization and Classification of Vegetation Canopy Structure and Distribution within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Using LiDAR. in X Wu, A Tuzhilin, H Xiong, JG Dy, C Aggarwal, Z-H Zhou & P Cui (eds), Proceedings - 15th IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshop, ICDMW 2015., 7395844, Proceedings - 15th IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshop, ICDMW 2015, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., pp. 1478-1485, 15th IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshop, ICDMW 2015, Atlantic City, United States, 11/14/15. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICDMW.2015.178

Characterization and Classification of Vegetation Canopy Structure and Distribution within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Using LiDAR. / Kumar, Jitendra; Weiner, Jon; Hargrove, William W. et al.
Proceedings - 15th IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshop, ICDMW 2015. ed. / Xindong Wu; Alexander Tuzhilin; Hui Xiong; Jennifer G. Dy; Charu Aggarwal; Zhi-Hua Zhou; Peng Cui. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2016. p. 1478-1485 7395844 (Proceedings - 15th IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshop, ICDMW 2015).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

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Kumar J, Weiner J, Hargrove WW, Norman SP, Hoffman FM, Newcomb D. Characterization and Classification of Vegetation Canopy Structure and Distribution within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Using LiDAR. In Wu X, Tuzhilin A, Xiong H, Dy JG, Aggarwal C, Zhou ZH, Cui P, editors, Proceedings - 15th IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshop, ICDMW 2015. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. 2016. p. 1478-1485. 7395844. (Proceedings - 15th IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshop, ICDMW 2015). doi: 10.1109/ICDMW.2015.178

Characterization and Classification of Vegetation Canopy Structure and Distribution within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Using LiDAR

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