Rangeland Ecology & Management

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APPLICATION OF VIRTUAL REALITY TECHNOLOGIES IN SUPPORT OF REDD RELATED WOODLAND INVENTORIES
Author
Washington-Allen, Robert A.
Ribeiro, Natasha S.
Raposo, Paulo A.
Vermilyea, Connor W.
Friedrichs, Robert
Banze, Aires
Landolt, Kyle
Publisher
Society for Range Management
Publication Year
2018
Body

We have been conducting the monitoring, verification, and reporting (MRV) of carbon dynamics for a Level II Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation & Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) related project in the 14th largest protected area in the world: the 42,000 km2 Niassa National Reserve�s (NNR) in northern Mozambique. We have conducted this study for an 11-year period, between 2005-2015, and have found that anthropogenic fires, declining elephant herbivory (due to increased poaching between 2009 to 2015), and water limitations drive the Miombo woodland�s carbon dynamics. We collected data on miombo woodland structure (including fuel extraction and elephant and fire damage), composition, demographics including recruitment and mortality, biomass, and vegetation and soil carbon stock density (CSD) using traditional forest inventory methods in fifty 30-m diameter circular sample plots. In 2015, we tested a new survey technology: a 1550-nm wavelength terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) with a 2.25-mm laser spot size and a ranging accuracy of � 2 mm over 350-m to collect three-dimensional (3-D) virtual woodland structural data in 35 of the 50 plots at a sampling rate of 976,000 points sec-1 at a spacing of 8-mm 10 m-1 range. The resulting GPS positioned 5 scans per plot were registered and consolidated into a single 3-D ~23 million points cloud for each period with a mean spacing of 1-cm. We compared TLS data for 11 of these plots to field collected�tree height and DBH for 10 to 15 trees per plot. We both manually and automatically measured forest parameters in the 3-D virtual environment using commercial and open source software. Manual measures of tree height and DBH were also taken directly from the trees within the 3-D TLS environment projected onto reality by a Microsoft HoloLens. We found that the HoloLens augmented TLS measures of DBH and height were highly related to field measures (�r2�> 0.85). We estimated overall mean tree density was > 550 trees ha-1 distributed across 79 species.Consistent with broadscale remote sensing studies of �greening trends in Africa�, above ground biomass is increasing over the last 11 years suggesting that NNR represents a potential carbon sink.

Language
English
Resource Type
Text
Document Type
Conference Proceedings
Conference Name
SRM Reno, NV