To:  Brenda Brown and Sherry Farwell
From:  Lee Vierling

Re:  Report for travel to the Workshop on Three-Dimensional Analysis of Forest Structure and Terrain Using LiDAR Technology, March 14-15, 2002

I participated in the above workshop held at the Pacific Forestry Center of the Canadian Forest Service in Victoria, BC.  This workshop highlighted work in the emerging remote sensing research area of using airborne laser altimetry to estimate forest height, biomass, and leaf area index.  My travel was partially funded by NASA-EPSCoR.  Accompanying me on this trip was Mr. Eric Rowell, a LIDAR analyst from Horizon’s Incorporated of Rapid City, SD.

The workshop was relatively small (approximately 35 participants) and featured approximately 15 talks relating to the basic and applied research questions currently under investigation in this field.  The participant list included the top workers in this field from the United States, Canada, and Australia.  Our involvement in this small conference increased the awareness of the international LiDAR forestry community of our recently begun LIDAR research efforts in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  Of particular relevance to the NASA-EPSCoR effort, we spoke with Dr. David Harding of NASA-GFC to discuss research goals and potential collaborative opportunities. 

Several outcomes have arisen from this conference:

  1. Enhanced collaborative opportunities with D. Harding, NASA/GFC, M. Lefsky, Oregon State University, and M. Renslow, OSU/Spencer B. Gross (Portland, OR); three leaders in the field of LiDAR remote sensing of forests.
  2. Eric Rowell has since applied for and been accepted into the MS program in Atmospheric Sciences at SDSM&T
  3. Aaron Smith, Ph.D. candidate at the University of Idaho and co-participant at the conference, will work in my laboratory to learn LIDAR processing and field ground truthing techniques during the summer of 2002.  This will strengthen our collaborative ties with UI and Horizon’s Incorporated.
  4. We have been invited to submit a manuscript on LIDAR remote sensing of the Black Hills in a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing as a result of this workshop.

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