Quality assurance and quality control procedures of airborne scanning LiDAR for a nation-wide carbon inventory of planted forests.

To meet Kyoto Protocol obligations, New Zealand is required to estimate forest carbon stock change over the first commitment period (2008-2012). New Zealand has three categories of forest, namely: natural forest; forests planted prior to 1990; and forests planted in non-forest land after 31 December 1989. The forests planted after 31 December 1989 are called ‘Kyoto forests’. The Kyoto forest carbon inventory system involves use of discrete return airborne LiDAR covering circular plots located on a 4 km grid. The plots are 0.06 ha in area. This paper describes the quality assurance and quality control procedures being used to ensure that the LiDAR data meet contract specifications. To be fit-for-purpose for forest carbon inventory the key LiDAR quality characteristics include: positional accuracy; first return density greater than three points per m; no data decimation; correct file naming; and consistent classification of the ground returns within the point cloud.