Digital planning of continuous cover forestry logging : Airborne LiDAR and spatial analysis approach

This study and its developments presented an analysis process to identify forest stands that are suitable for continuous cover forestry harvest, based on tree characteristics and canopy structure. Finnish open forest resource data and national LiDAR were used as input data. Similar input data can be produced in other territories using airborne LiDAR and field reference data. Out of 5467 stands analyzed, 925 were identified as having a canopy structure and timber stock suitable for continuous cover logging operations. The resulting maps of this study described standard deviation of tree height, basal area, dominant height and established undergrowth for potential continuous cover forestry logging stands. These maps are digital tools for targeting uneven-aged structured continuous cover forestry logging sites. They enable achieving combined large continuous cover logging blocks which improve wood procurement. Planning of the logging sites in the field also becomes more efficient when the sites are pre-selected with the help of the maps. Continuous cover forestry can be used on other stands, but the current timber stock does not provide enough logging yield or the canopy structure does not support continuous cover structure without additional alterations or regeneration. Soil type has not been considered in this study, since continuous cover forests can be grown on different soils. This study focused on finding stands that currently have a suitable canopy structure for continuous cover forestry. In the future, important LiDAR tool development targets for continuous cover forestry logging are terrain maps describing the traversability of a forest machine and integration of the map tools into forest machine information systems. This study focused on presenting a workflow for suitable continuous cover forestry stand identification. The accuracy of the identification should next be assessed using large field data sets.