1. 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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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.

8. 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 ( )
LEFI Cranbrook TSA 新项目( )
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

9. 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.

10. 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

11. 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!

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

13. 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

14. 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
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

15. 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

16. 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

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