This thesis mainly consists of two parts: (1) comparing statistical modeling methods based on the area-based approach (ABA) for predicting forest inventory attributes using airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data (Chapter 2), and (2) suggesting a new methodology fusing the individual tree detection (ITD) approach and the ABA for...
Acquiring, maintaining, disseminating, and utilizing quality data is key to adequate understanding and management of ecosystems. Modern remote sensing technology provides us an increasingly cost effective, unique opportunity for acquiring highly detailed information across every square meter of a landscape. The plethora of data available to scientists allows for use...
The mountain pine beetle has impacted over 5 million hectares of pine forests in the Rocky Mountains region in the United States. Although some beetle-killed stands are available for salvage harvesting, there are many uncertainties in harvesting beetle-killed stands including safety, costs, recoverable products and their values. These uncertainties impose...
Accurate estimates of height-to-crown-base (HTCB) are essential for the reliable projections of stand structure over time required for sustainable forest management. Yet, HTCB often measured alongside total height (HT) for only for a subsample of trees in traditional stand-based inventories and must be imputed for all others. We compared the...
Broad-scale estimates of above ground forest biomass (AGB) are typically produced by applying individual-tree equations to inventory data consisting of measurements from probabilistically or purposively selected trees. The associated uncertainty for these estimates depends primarily on three sources of error that interact and propagate: (1) measurement error, the quality of...
As remote sensing data continues to proliferate, development and assessment of methods that generate predictions of forest attributes is needed to inform operational use. For several decades, lidar data collected from aerial platforms has informed assessments of forest resources, but many opportunities remain for the technology. We examine and develop...
Anthropogenic land-cover change and climate change are the major drivers of the steep loss of avian biodiversity in past decades. Loss of avian biodiversity is predicted to result in the reduction of ecosystem services and ecological functions. Identifying avian population changes and the drivers of these trajectories is essential for...
Quantifying biomass is important for sustainable forest management. The purpose of this study is to obtain allometric relationships for seven species of shrubs common in northeastern California so that estimates of carbon and fuel loading may be better realized. Although some shrub biomass equations exist, such equations are limited in...
Quantitative assessments of post-fire effects are key to improving our understanding of ecosystem resilience. While remote sensing technology has allowed us to assess post-fire landscape effects, we are often limited by the lack of information related to pre-fire forest attributes. As a result, our ability to interpret fire effects in...
The issue of global climate change and an increasing interest in the reduction of fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions by using forest biomass for energy production has increased the importance of quantifying forest biomass in recent years. The official U.S. forest carbon reporting is based on the forest biomass estimates...