Multi-Temporal Airborne LiDAR-Survey and Field Measurements of Tropical Peat Swamp Forest to Monitor Changes

Natural tropical peat swamp forests are important for their rich biodiversity and serve as a huge carbon pool. However, peat swamp forests are decreasing due to deforestation, conversion into farm land, excessive draining, the use of shifting cultivation on a large scale, illegal logging, forest fire and palm oil plantation. Airborne laser scanning (ALS) also termed airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data is nowadays a good single sensor to investigate bio-geophysical parameters in remote tropical rain forest areas (e.g. tree canopy height which is strongly correlated with above ground biomass). Bi-temporal airborne LiDAR data acquired in August 2007 and August 2011 were used to characterize peat swamp forest changes located in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. We measured the tree height and Canopy Height Model (CHM) with LiDAR, segmented the canopies and then compared the tree height with the field measurements. Additionally, we collected ground field measurements at Sabangau forest transect in order to characterize some biophysical properties of different peat swamp forest physiognomies such as diameter at breast height (DBH), tree-height, leaf area index (LAI), crown coverage and above ground biomass (AGB). From the bi-temporal LiDAR Data we analyzed the forest regrowth and the peat subsidence. This work can be promising in the REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) framework of knowledge of tropical PSF. The LiDAR technology supports the MRV (Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification) aspect of REDD+.