Estimation of forest stand characteristics using individual tree detection, stochastic geometry and a sequential spatial point process model

Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) results in point-wise measurements of canopy height, which can further be used for Individual Tree Detection (ITD). However, ITD cannot find all trees because small trees can hide below larger tree crowns. Here we discuss methods where the plot totals and means of tree-level characteristics are estimated in such context. The starting point is a previously presented Horvitz–Thompson-like (HT-like) estimator, where the detectability is based on the larger tree crowns and a tuning parameter that models the detection condition. We propose a new method which is based on modeling the spatial pattern of hidden tree locations using a sequential spatial point process mo…