Ground Truth from Above

five years of turning airborne LiDAR point clouds into canopy, terrain and biomass indicators that agencies and research collaborators could stand behind

The School of Continuous Improvement's Impact Report 2021-2026 is its Director's extended reflection on five years spent alongside airborne LiDAR survey programs, organised around three lines of work: remeasuring and relocating the field plots that calibrate a canopy height model, recording how the ground was decided beneath every terrain model, and following a forest estate's biomass estimate from point cloud to report. It records 1,240 plots measured twice, a calibration gap that differed by forest stratum, and a March 2024 restatement of the estate's biomass once 61 relocated plots rejoined the calibration.

@misc{slop_d3v3xj,
  author       = {Mirela Hanke and Sten Okwuosa and Marit Osayande},
  title        = {Ground Truth from Above: five years of turning airborne LiDAR point clouds into canopy, terrain and biomass indicators that agencies and research collaborators could stand behind},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.d3v3xj},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-impact-ground-truth-from-d3v3xj/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Impact report},
}