Tree Species Classification Based on Upper Crown Morphology Captured by Uncrewed Aircraft System Lidar Data

The application of lidar data to assist with forest inventory is common around the world. However, the determination of tree species is still somewhat elusive. Lidar data collected using UAS (uncrewed aircraft systems) platforms offer high density point cloud data for areas from a few to several hundred hectares. General point cloud metrics computed using these data captured differences in the crown structure that proved useful for species classification. For our study, we manually adjusted plot and tree locations to align field trees and UAS lidar point data and computed common descriptive metrics using a small cylindrical sample of points designed to capture the top three meters and leader of each tree. These metrics were used to train a random forest classifier to differentiate between two conifer species, Douglas fir and western hemlock, common in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Our UAS lidar data had a single swath pulse density of 90 pulses/m2 and an aggregate pulse density of 556 pulses/m2. We trained classification models using both height and intensity metrics, height metrics alone, intensity metrics alone, and a small subset of five metrics, and achieved overall accuracies of 91.8%, 88.7%, 78.6%, and 91.5%, respectively. Overall, we showed that UAS lidar data captured morphological differences between the upper crowns of our two target species and produced a classification model that could be applied over large areas.