Terrestrial LiDAR and Tree-Ring Observation - A Perfect Match

Terrestrial LiDAR and Tree-Ring Observation - A Perfect Match

This project is led by Principal Investigator Flurin Babst, an Assistant Research Professor within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at U of A.

Assisted by Seth Irwin, Cynthia Libantino Norton, and Jeffrey Gillan, the team established a network of 10 test sites in the Santa Rita Mountains. Each site was unique, with varying features, expositions, and slopes. The team analyzed vegetation conditions within a set perimeter on each site and collected relevant tree-ring data relating to growth rate and climate activity. The tree-ring data used for this research was collected from a sister project under the Arizona Institute for Resilient Environments and Societies (AIRES). This project had the following goals in mind: locate trees, perform quantitative structure modeling, and also get information on the varying tree and shrub growth features from each site. This exciting project plans to collect data along these avenues to provide more refined data for different types of vegetation for a better calibration of air and spaceborne observations, all centering around our lovely Santa Rita Mountains here in Arizona. This project is currently developing and continues to prove itself as an exciting collaborative effort to provide better data for the world!