LiDAR Enhanced Forest Inventory in British Columbia LiDAR 在BC省森林调查中的应用 Challenges and Opportunities By Xiaoping Yuan Forest Analysis and Inventory Branch Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations British Columbia, Canada April 19-20, 2017 LEFI, for lack of appropriate name, I will use it for now. It implies LiDAR is the only tool to enhance inventory. In fact, the future inventory could be based on a number of tools (combination or integration) such as satellite spectral, photo, ground etc. Outline: background, current status, and issues and opportunities for LEFI My goal is to share our BC experience on LEFI with you, lessons learned, issues and challenges, as well where we are going with LEFI in the next 5-10 years It is good to learn from our colleagues, thanks to the organizer of this workshop LiDAR, ALS, EFI

Background Canada British Columbia 95 million hectares 990 million BC total land area: 95 million ha, bigger than combined (86.3) Oregon 25.4 million ha, Washington 18.5, and California 42.4 1 ha = 2.47 acres, 95 ha = 235 acres HLJ: 47.3 mh, LN: 14.8 mh, JL: 18.7 mh, total 80.8 million ha British Columbia 95 million hectares 东北三省总面积：80.8万公顷

Forest Land & Ownership Total area of BC 95 million hectares Forest Land & Ownership Forested land 60 million hectares Ownership 95%of forests owned by BC government

Forest Analysis and Inventory Mandate: authority of forest inventory for the province Total employees: Inventory: 35, with an annual inventory budget $8-10 million Vegetation Resource Inventory: stand level inventory based on conventional and manual photo interpretation for strategic applications.

Challenges挑战 Insufficient funding: aging inventory data Aging workforce and lack of expertise/skill Multiple types of data/information and fast changing technologies Increasing public expectations Insufficient infrastructure Mountain Pine Beetle Infrastructure is not fully built: standards/specifications, design methodology, implementation, training, database, H/S tools, staffing, budget/planning

Satellites We are in digital era LiDAR Airborne Landsat8 TM (30m) Rapideye & SPOT(2-10m) Satellites WorldView3 & Geoeye (0.3m) We are in digital era Digital air photo (0.3m) LiDAR A wide range of digital imagery including airborne and satellite is available depending on budget and project requirements Inventory program acquires mid scale photography, uses large scale digital camera data, Landsat data as well as starting to use the higher resolution satellite imagery such as WorldView 3 and Rapideye. Film to Digital transition is not only the data change, but also it brings the changes in methods and standards, the way we used to do our business. Air photo acquisition and interpretation has not changed since WWII, but now it is changing. Kodak filed bankruptcy protection because it has not changed fast enough, thus became irrelevant quickly The aerial imaging industry is still evolving, companies with slow change or short sight will be gone out of business. Digital Camera(0.1m) Airborne

Changes in Forest Inventory Multi-resolution (scale) for multiple purposes and applications - Provincial and regional monitoring - Management unit analysis and planning - Stand level management - Site specific operations - Tree measurements for modeling Critical change: from data provider to service provider One of the major changes at FAIB is that we are adding new inventory tools into the program Most folks are familiar with VRI, our bread and butter program that has been built, used/maintained for almost a century. Now we are adding three additional tools, each has own characteristics and purposes, as shown in this graph X: cost and y is data detail and accuracy, our inventory tools can be arranged as shown, may not be exactly linear but close, i.e. you pay more for better data. At the top is our ground measurement tool, most expensive but best as it measures trees directly on the ground. At the middle we have strategic inventory VRI at stand level covering the province which is most commonly available and used by most folks LiDAR EFI is sub stand level or individual trees, better measure of tree height and density, thus better timber volume which is why BCTS and licensee are interested most Another tool we recently added is LVI, it provide inventory data for tree classes at landscape level, appropriate for strategic planning and analysis. We use this tool to complement to VRI applied to remote area, such as Cassiar TSA, the largest TSA in the province At the bottom is VRMP, part of NFI, primarily for state of forest reporting and monitoring purpose. provincial/national, unit and regional LVI/VRI, and operational LiDAR based Multi-resolution It is my view that VRI, our mainstream of business, will exist for many years, longer than any one of us at the table. Reasons: (1) The current forest management is and will be still stand based, (2) The province is and will be covered largely by VRI, and (3) all infrastructure is built around VRI Fundamental change from “one size fits all” to multiple inventory tools: from inventory data provider to service provider. These inventories will co-exist, complement each other, and can be up-linked through the current VRI structure. This is especially important to you folks as well, because inevitably you will encounter these data types in the future. So it is good to know these inventories and data types and use them appropriately.

LEFI – LiDAR Enhanced Forest Inventory Pilot 试验项目(2005) Operational trial 第一个应用项目(2011) Full LEFI 推广项目(2016) LEFI 3个应用项目 (2016-2017) LEFI Cranbrook TSA 新项目(2017-2018) We started a pilot project back in 2005 working with UVIC RS in TFL 18, about 10 maps The first operational LEFI was done in 2011 in partnership with BCTS and Western Forest Product for an area of 100,000ha in North Vancouver Island Complete LEFI in Kamloops/Okanagan in 2016, about 200,000 ha On going projects: Hadai Gwaii, Kamloops/Okanagan, Merritt, about 800,000ha. This year, we start a brand new project in Cranbrook TSA, about 1 million ha. There will be a complete inventory for the TSA including LEFI as well VRI

LiDAR Coverage 2016 10 million ha by vendors 2 million ha worked on by FAIB 2 million ha planed 2017/18 2-3 million ha per year by the CF 1, Quebec’s plan: 50 million ha cover most productive forest land in next 5 years 2. Alberta, already provincial forest covered, but inventory is not taking advantage, now the data is out of date for inventory 3. Cranbrook VRI, a good test case. Let’s get on it next year.

Issues and Challenges with LiDAR LEFI is a totally new inventory tool Cost of LiDAR data acquisition: >$5/ha a few years ago to <$1/ha now Inventory cost $1/ha (ground sampling and analysis) Existing ground plot data Model portability Standards and specifications Why do we have a strategy or do we have one for LEFI? Mentioned a year ago at TL meeting but was ignored. Yes, I think we do need it and that is why we are here In the following slides I will provide with some facts and

LiDAR Enhanced Forest Inventory Flowchart Acquisition Processing Acquire LiDAR Pre-process Normalized and classified point cloud Convert to .laz Retile and buffer Remove duplicates Create 1m DEM QA Create 1m CHM Normalized CHM VRI BEC/TRIM Generate 0.04ha plot metrics Generate 20m metrics Pre-inventory analysis Stratification Sample plot selection Orthophoto Ground data collection Ground data compiled Statistical models 20m raster predicted ATT Metrics indices Ground and modeling Sampling Design Landsat And GE Object segments kNN/RF processing Processing for VRIMS VRI Processing for VRIMS VRI upgraded & publishing New LEFI for VRIMS Integration Enhancement It is a new inventory tool!

Forest Inventory Life Cycle Getting the inventory Growing the inventory Updating the inventory Managing the Inventory Monitoring the inventory Using the Inventory

Issues: from raster to polygon - Species - Height, which ones? - Stem per ha - Crown closure - Basal area - Volume - Age ` - dbh - Projection Limitations 1. Resolution 2. New information 3. Mixed reference year 4. Accuracy/precision

Proposed 5-years LEFI Implementation Strategy Training, staffing, H/S, database, projection LEFI core development/design/planning team LEFI implementation team, execution team Capitalize the existing LiDAR to enhance VRI 2017-2018 2-3 new LEFI projects each year (>$2million) Champion new LiDAR data acquisition projects Build user interfaces and applications (TSR) Don’t change VRI for LEFI, but do use VRI components when building LEFI

Opportunities Building a new inventory tool Issues with VRI and LEFI Hybrid LEFI/VRI - Better (accuracy and precision) - Automated and model based - Spatial and full attributes - Ground, photo/LiDAR, satellite - Cheaper? Depends - From trees to raster and polygon 3. New applications 4. New H/S tools

Cranbrook LEFI 2017/19 Over 1 million ha Ground sampling, 200 plots Segmentation as spatial based on LiDAR DEM/CHM, Landsat, SPOT, and orthophoto. Photo sampling, 10,000 Model based LEFI kNN or RF classification LEFI enhanced VRI by 2018 New spatial/attribute database by 2019

Summary: from VRI to LEFI Vision/strategy and leadership Standards, specifications, and guidelines Expertise and training Infrastructure Integration New applications