Publications
NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.
2006
Authors
Aksel GranhusAbstract
No abstract has been registered
2005
Authors
Svein SolbergAbstract
Forest damage will result in two general effects: defoliation and/or discolouration. The two available techniques in remote sensing of forests today, LiDAR and spectroscopy, are promising tools for monitoring these two, respectively. Merging data on foliar mass, estimated by LiDAR, with data on chlorophyll concentrations, estimated by spectroscopy, can provide data on chlorophyll mass pr area unit. Monitoring the temporal changes of this is likely to be a very good measure for variations in forest health.In order to check out the possibilities for this, we are now working on building relationships between foliar mass data and LiDAR data for single spruce trees. In total we have measurements of position and stem diameter on about 2000 trees distributed on 16 plots, where 64 trees are intensively sampled for estimating foliar mass, as well as crown size.We need to parameterize a relationship between the LiDAR data for each of these trees and their foliar mass (or leaf area). If we succeed to build this relationship, we will scale it up to provide foliar mass (or leaf area) estimates for every 10x10 m pixels in two SPOT images of the area.Together with a similar up-scaling of chlorophyll concentrations, based on spectroscopy, we will test the possibility of estimating chlorophyll mass per area from SPOT or other satellites. In addition, we have visually assessed data on crown density for all the trees, being a rough, but valuable data-set for validating the relationship.The work, being in progress now, includes several tasks:a) finding an appropriate canopy surface modelb) segmentation of treesc) estimating crown volume, and evt d) handling of smaller trees standing below (this is a heterogenous canopy layer forest) and e) handling of the relative influence of stem and branches.Additionally, we see some other benefits from using LiDAR together with airborne hyperspectral data and satellite data in general. Firstly, the combination of high resolution LiDAR and hyper-spectral data, is a good basis for separating the signals from ground vegetation and from the tree canopy. Secondly, LiDAR provides both a DTM and a canopy surface model, and they are two alternative surface models for the geo-referencing of other data, and for appropriate handling of effects of shadowing and obstacles from tall trees.
2004
Authors
Lars Sandved Dalen H. Danforth J. Einset Carl Gunnar Fossdal Aksel Granhus Øystein Johnsen Harald Kvaalen Nina Elisabeth Nagy P. Rinne Linda Ripel S. Torre Gunnhild Søgaard C. van der SchootAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
Extensive monitoring of forest health in Europe has been carried out for two decades, based mainly on defoliation and discolouration. Together these two variables reflect chlorophyll amounts in the tree crown, i.e. as an indicator of foliar mass, and chlorophyll concentration in the foliage, respectively.In a current project we try to apply remote sensing techniques to estimate canopy chlorophyll mass, being a suitable forest health variable. So far, we limit this to Norway spruce only. LIDAR data here play an important role, together with optical and spectral data, either from survey flights or from satellites. We intend to model relationships between foliar mass and LIDAR data for sample trees, and then scale up this to foliar mass estimates for the entire LIDAR area.Similarly, we try to scale up chlorophyll concentrations in sample trees, by modelling a relationship between sample tree chlorophyll and hyper-spectral data. The estimates of foliar mass and chlorophyll concentrations are then aggregated to every 10x10 m pixel of a SPOT satellite scene which is also covered by airborne data, providing an up-scaled ground truth. If we are successful with this, it might be a starting point for developing a new nationwide forest health monitoring system in Norway.
Authors
Svein SolbergAbstract
Summer drought, i.e. unusually dry and warm weather, has been a significant stress factor for Norway spruce in southeast Norway during the 14 years of forest monitoring. Dry and warm summers were followed by increases in defoliation, discolouration of foliage, cone formation and mortality. The causal mechanisms are discussed. Most likely, the defoliation resulted from increased needle-fall in the autumn after dry summers.During the monitoring period 19882001, southeast Norway was repeatedly affected by summer drought, in particular, in the early 1990s. The dataset comprised 455 Forest officers plots with annual data on crown condition and mortality. Linear mixed models were used for estimation and hypothesis testing, including a variancecovariance structure for the handling of random effects and temporal autocorrelation.
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
2003
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
Mortality, injury and height growth of planted Picea abies (L.) Karst. were examined in a six-year period in eight stands in southeast Norway. There were four residual stand densities (shelterwoods of high, medium and low density, 25 x 25 m patch cut) combined with three scarification treatments (unscarified, patch scarification, inverting) in a split-plot design. Mortality was generally low during the experimental period, and did not differ significantly between the residual density treatments (mean=11.1%). Both survival and plant height after 6 years were improved by inverting, while patch scarification was intermediate but not significantly different from the unscarified alternative. The patch-cutting resulted in the tallest plants, while only minor differences in height growth were found between the shelterwood treatments. The frequency of injured plants after six years was not significantly affected by the treatments (mean=10.6%). The improved plant establishment with inverting in this study is in agreement with previous studies on clear-cuts.
Authors
Kjell Andreassen Stein TomterAbstract
Distance-independent individual tree growth models based on about 30,000 observations from the National Forest Inventory and the Norwegian Forest Research Institute have been developed for the main tree species in Norway.The models predict 5-year basal area increment over bark for trees larger than 5cm at breast height. Potential input variables were of four types: size of the tree, competition indices, site conditions, and stand variables including species, mixtures and layers. The squared correlation coefficient (R2) varied from 0.26 to 0.55.The accuracy of the models was tested by comparing the individual tree models with Norwegian diameter increment models. The accuracy is similar, but individual tree models forecast diameter distributions directly. The inclusion of species mixture and layer as variables increases the reliability of the models in mixed and in uneven-aged stands
2002
Authors
Gro HylenAbstract
No abstract has been registered