Data for: The effect of leaf-on and leaf-off forest canopy conditions on LiDAR derived estimations of forest structural diversity
Description
These data provide forest structure diversity information collected in the field and from a rare combination of leaf-on and –off airborne LiDAR surveys. Field surveys incorporate forest plots containing a wide range of species, age and silvicultural practises, including areas of ancient woodland. The leaf-on LiDAR dataset was collected during 2009 and the leaf-off dataset was collected during 2011. Allometric measurements were collected from each tree (DBH ≥ 8) within 30 field sites benefitting from leaf-on and –off LiDAR coverage. Analysis includes normalisation of point clouds to height above ground and calculation of a wide variety of point distribution metrics for each survey plot. L-CV of field derived variables (tree height, DBH, crown length and crown width) was calculated for each plot as a corresponding field diversity reference measurement. Those who can benefit from these data include data scientists looking for a dataset collected from a complex natural system, individuals looking to model and map forest structure diversity and biodiversity from airborne LiDAR, those interested in LiDAR representations of forestry metrics and those with an interest in forest growth and change detection. This article is a co-submission with the article “The effect of leaf-on and leaf-off forest canopy conditions on LiDAR derived estimations of forest structural diversity”