JOURNAL OF NANJING FORESTRY UNIVERSITY ›› 2021, Vol. 45 ›› Issue (4): 49-57.doi: 10.12302/j.issn.1000-2006.202010004

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Estimation of aboveground biomass of natural secondary forests based on optical-ALS variable combination and non-parametric models

ZHAO Yinghui1,2(), GUO Xinlong1, ZHEN Zhen1,2,*()   

  1. 1. School of Forestry, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin 150040, China
    2. Key Laboratory of Sustainable Forest Ecosystem Management-Ministry of Education, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin 150040, China
  • Received:2020-10-02 Accepted:2021-05-06 Online:2021-07-30 Published:2021-07-30
  • Contact: ZHEN Zhen E-mail:zyinghui0925@126.com;zhzhen@syr.edu

Abstract:

【Objective】 We explored feature variables extracted through a combination of airborne laser scanning (ALS) and Sentinel-2A data, and investigated with the aim of identifying the best variable combination mode and estimation method for estimating the forest aboveground biomass (AGB) of natural secondary forests. 【Method】 Based on ALS data from 2015, Sentinel-2A data, and the fixed sample plots of the continuous inventory of secondary forest resources from Maoershan Forest Farm in 2016, this study extracted height features from ALS data (all the LiDAR variables, AL), several vegetation indices from Sentinel-2A (all the optical variables, AO), and then combined the two kinds of variables into new variables (COLI1 and COLI2). Finally, five models were constructed, including the stepwise multiple linear regression (SMLR), K-nearest neighbor (K-NN), support vector regression (SVR), random forest (RF), and stack sparse auto-encoder (SSAE) of AGB for natural secondary forests using six feature combinations (AO+AL, COLI1, COLI2, COLI1+AO+AL, COLI2+AO+AL and COLI1+ COLI2+AO+AL). The influence of the COLIs variable, and that of different models, on the accuracy of the AGB was investigated. 【Result】The COLIs variable could efficiently improve the accuracy of AGB estimates and, compared to the other four models, SSAE had the highest accuracy regardless of the variables. The SSAE model with the combination of optical and ALS features (COLI1+ COLI2+AO+AL) had the best model performance of R2 which was 0.83, RMSE was 11.06 t/hm2, rRMSE was 8.23%. 【Conclusion】 The combined variable COLIs can effectively improve the estimation accuracy of natural secondary forest AGB, and one way of the deep learning model (SSAE) is superior to the other prediction models in estimating the AGB of a natural secondary forest. This conclusion will help to further apply the deep learning model to draw a large-area AGB spatial distribution map and estimate the other forest parameters. In general, the SSAE model with the combination of ALS and Sentinel-2A data could estimate AGB more accurately than the other models. This finding provides a technical support for AGB estimation and carbon evaluation of natural secondary forests.

Key words: airborne laser radar (ALS), Sentinel-2A, combined optical and LiDNR index (COLIs), stack sparse auto-encoder (SSAE), natural secondary forest, aboveground biomass

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