Inversion of forest canopy height in south of China by integrating GLAS and MERSI: The case of Jiangxi province in China
中国南方森林冠顶高度Lidar反演—以江西省为例

For inversion of forest canopy height in large scale, it is of great signifi cance to integrate space-borne Lidar and optical remote sensing data effectively. The homemade satellite will provide a plentiful datum for forest ecological researches. In this paper, the processing of GLAS waveform data and the algorithm of forest canopy height in different terrain were implemented. The GLAS + MERSI joint inversion model of canopy height of different forest types in regional scale was established and used to map the forest canopy height of Jiangxi province. Overall, high accuracy was observed for the canopy height estimated by GLAS + MERSI joint inversion model with R2=0.733 for the needle-leaf forest, following by the broadleaf forest (R2=0.610). The results showed that the established model was workable. It was found that the GLAS + MERSI joint inversion model which considers the optical remote sensing of biophysical parameters can provide good estimates of forest canopy height at regional scale. The space distribution characteristic was found consistent with the data of land cover.