ABSTRACT

Hyperspectral remote sensing has been shown to provide valuable information about many aspects of forest ecosystems that are of interest for forest management, including forest species, biodiversity, carbon, fire fuel loadings, canopy biochemistry, stress, and others. These insights are enhanced through fusion with other sensors, particularly lidar. However, despite the many potential benefits of this technology, the use of hyperspectral imagery for operational forest management applications has been limited. Most of the work has been in the realm of scientific research or pilot/demonstration studies that show the potential value of hyperspectral data in forest conservation, monitoring, and inventory. This is, in large part, due to a lack of repeated hyperspectral observations for large regions from satellite data. It is evident that if an accessible hyperspectral satellite is successfully launched, such data will become a critical tool in improvements to our understanding of global forest ecosystems and their dynamics.