Airborne Laser Scanning - the Status and Perspectives for the Application in the South-East European Forestry

Background and Purpose: Over the last twenty years airborne laser scanning (ALS) technology, also referred to as LiDAR, has been established in a many disciplines as a fully automated and highly efficient method of collecting spatial data. In Croatia, as well as in most countries of the South-East Europe (SEE) with the exception of Slovenia, the research on the application of ALS in forestry has not yet been conducted. Also, regional scientific and professional literature dealing with ALS application is scarce. Therefore, the main goal of this review paper is to present the ALS technology to the forestry community of SEE and to provide an overview of its potential application in forest inventory. The primary focus is given to discrete return ALS systems.

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