Discriminating disturbance from natural variation with LiDAR in semi-arid forests in the southwestern USA

Discriminating amongst spatial configurations and climax size of trees in forests along varying physical gradients from time since last disturbance is a significant component of applied forest management. Understanding what has led to the existing vegetation's structure has important implications for monitoring succession and eco-hydrological interactions within the critical zone: the near-surface environment where rock, soil, air, and biota interact and regulate ecosystem services. This research demonstrates the utilities of local indicators of spatial association (LISA) to (1) quantify natural variation in forest structure as derived from aerial Light Detection and Range (LiDAR) across topographically complex landscapes at ecologically relevant scale, i.e., individual trees; (2) map previously recorded but poorly defined forest disturbances; and (3) link scalable topographic indices to observed tree size distributions. We first selected a priori undisturbed and disturbed stands scanned by aerial LiDAR t...

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