Comparative Analyses of the Point Cloud Produced by Using Close-Range Photogrammetry and Terrestrial Laser Scanning for Rock Surface

Point cloud produced by using theoretically and practically different techniques is one of the most preferred data types in various engineering applications and projects. The advanced methods to obtain point cloud data in terrestrial studies are close range photogrammetry (CRP) and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS). In the TLS technique, separated from the CRP in terms of system structure, denser point cloud at certain intervals can be produced. However, point clouds can be produced with the help of photographs taken at appropriate conditions depending on the hardware and software technologies. Adequate quality photographs can be obtained by consumer grade digital cameras, and photogrammetric software widely used nowadays provides the generation of point cloud support. The tendency and the desire for the TLS are higher since it constitutes a new area of research. Moreover, it is believed that TLS takes the place of CRP, reviewed as antiquated. In this study that is conducted on rock surfaces located at Istanbul Technical University Ayazaga Campus, whether point cloud produced by means photographs can be used instead of point cloud obtained by laser scanner device is investigated. Study is worked on covers approximately area of 30 m?×?10 m. In order to compare the methods, 2D and 3D analyses as well as accuracy assessment were conducted. 2D analysis is areal-based whereas 3D analysis is volume-based. Analyses results showed that point clouds in both cases are similar to each other and can be used for similar other studies. Also, because the factors affecting the accuracy of the basic data and derived product for both methods are quite variable, it was concluded that it is not appropriate to make a choice regardless of the object of interest and the working conditions.     

Science-based approach for credible accounting of mitigation in managed forests

Background

The credibility and effectiveness of country climate targets under the Paris Agreement requires that, in all greenhouse gas (GHG) sectors, the accounted mitigation outcomes reflect genuine deviations from the type and magnitude of activities generating emissions in the base year or baseline. This is challenging for the forestry sector, as the future net emissions can change irrespective of actual management activities, because of age-related stand dynamics resulting from past management and natural disturbances. The solution implemented under the Kyoto Protocol (2013–2020) was accounting mitigation as deviation from a projected (forward-looking) “forest reference level”, which considered the age-related dynamics but also allowed including the assumed future implementation of approved policies. This caused controversies, as unverifiable counterfactual scenarios with inflated future harvest could lead to credits where no change in management has actually occurred, or conversely, failing to reflect in the accounts a policy-driven increase in net emissions. Instead, here we describe an approach to set reference levels based on the projected continuation of documented historical forest management practice, i.e. reflecting age-related dynamics but not the future impact of policies. We illustrate a possible method to implement this approach at the level of the European Union (EU) using the Carbon Budget Model.

Results

Using EU country data, we show that forest sinks between 2013 and 2016 were greater than that assumed in the 2013–2020 EU reference level under the Kyoto Protocol, which would lead to credits of 110–120 Mt CO₂/year (capped at 70–80 Mt CO₂/year, equivalent to 1.3% of 1990 EU total emissions). By modelling the continuation of management practice documented historically (2000–2009), we show that these credits are mostly due to the inclusion in the reference levels of policy-assumed harvest increases that never materialized. With our proposed approach, harvest is expected to increase (12% in 2030 at EU-level, relative to 2000–2009), but more slowly than in current forest reference levels, and only because of age-related dynamics, i.e. increased growing stocks in maturing forests.

Conclusions

Our science-based approach, compatible with the EU post-2020 climate legislation, helps to ensure that only genuine deviations from the continuation of historically documented forest management practices are accounted toward climate targets, therefore enhancing the consistency and comparability across GHG sectors. It provides flexibility for countries to increase harvest in future reference levels when justified by age-related dynamics. It offers a policy-neutral solution to the polarized debate on forest accounting (especially on bioenergy) and supports the credibility of forest sector mitigation under the Paris Agreement.

     

Estimating urban above ground biomass with multi-scale LiDAR

Background

Urban trees have long been valued for providing ecosystem services (mitigation of the “heat island” effect, suppression of air pollution, etc.); more recently the potential of urban forests to store significant above ground biomass (AGB) has also be recognised. However, urban areas pose particular challenges when assessing AGB due to plasticity of tree form, high species diversity as well as heterogeneous and complex land cover. Remote sensing, in particular light detection and ranging (LiDAR), provide a unique opportunity to assess urban AGB by directly measuring tree structure. In this study, terrestrial LiDAR measurements were used to derive new allometry for the London Borough of Camden, that incorporates the wide range of tree structures typical of an urban setting. Using a wall-to-wall airborne LiDAR dataset, individual trees were then identified across the Borough with a new individual tree detection (ITD) method. The new allometry was subsequently applied to the identified trees, generating a Borough-wide estimate of AGB.

Results

Camden has an estimated median AGB density of 51.6 Mg ha^–1 where maximum AGB density is found in pockets of woodland; terrestrial LiDAR-derived AGB estimates suggest these areas are comparable to temperate and tropical forest. Multiple linear regression of terrestrial LiDAR-derived maximum height and projected crown area explained 93% of variance in tree volume, highlighting the utility of these metrics to characterise diverse tree structure. Locally derived allometry provided accurate estimates of tree volume whereas a Borough-wide allometry tended to overestimate AGB in woodland areas. The new ITD method successfully identified individual trees; however, AGB was underestimated by ≤?25% when compared to terrestrial LiDAR, owing to the inability of ITD to resolve crown overlap. A Monte Carlo uncertainty analysis identified assigning wood density values as the largest source of uncertainty when estimating AGB.

Conclusion

Over the coming century global populations are predicted to become increasingly urbanised, leading to an unprecedented expansion of urban land cover. Urban areas will become more important as carbon sinks and effective tools to assess carbon densities in these areas are therefore required. Using multi-scale LiDAR presents an opportunity to achieve this, providing a spatially explicit map of urban forest structure and AGB.

     

Numerical solution to the oblique derivative boundary value problem on non-uniform grids above the Earth topography

The paper presents a numerical solution of the oblique derivative boundary value problem on and above the Earth’s topography using the finite volume method (FVM). It introduces a novel method for constructing non-uniform hexahedron 3D grids above the Earth’s surface. It is based on an evolution of a surface, which approximates the Earth’s topography, by mean curvature. To obtain optimal shapes of non-uniform 3D grid, the proposed evolution is accompanied by a tangential redistribution of grid nodes. Afterwards, the Laplace equation is discretized using FVM developed for such a non-uniform grid. The oblique derivative boundary condition is treated as a stationary advection equation, and we derive a new upwind type discretization suitable for non-uniform 3D grids. The discretization of the Laplace equation together with the discretization of the oblique derivative boundary condition leads to a linear system of equations. The solution of this system gives the disturbing potential in the whole computational domain including the Earth’s surface. Numerical experiments aim to show properties and demonstrate efficiency of the developed FVM approach. The first experiments study an experimental order of convergence of the method. Then, a reconstruction of the harmonic function on the Earth’s topography, which is generated from the EGM2008 or EIGEN-6C4 global geopotential model, is presented. The obtained FVM solutions show that refining of the computational grid leads to more precise results. The last experiment deals with local gravity field modelling in Slovakia using terrestrial gravity data. The GNSS-levelling test shows accuracy of the obtained local quasigeoid model.     

An iteratively reweighted least-squares approach to adaptive robust adjustment of parameters in linear regression models with autoregressive and <Emphasis Type="Italic">t</Emphasis>-distributed deviations

In this paper, we investigate a linear regression time series model of possibly outlier-afflicted observations and autocorrelated random deviations. This colored noise is represented by a covariance-stationary autoregressive (AR) process, in which the independent error components follow a scaled (Student’s) t-distribution. This error model allows for the stochastic modeling of multiple outliers and for an adaptive robust maximum likelihood (ML) estimation of the unknown regression and AR coefficients, the scale parameter, and the degree of freedom of the t-distribution. This approach is meant to be an extension of known estimators, which tend to focus only on the regression model, or on the AR error model, or on normally distributed errors. For the purpose of ML estimation, we derive an expectation conditional maximization either algorithm, which leads to an easy-to-implement version of iteratively reweighted least squares. The estimation performance of the algorithm is evaluated via Monte Carlo simulations for a Fourier as well as a spline model in connection with AR colored noise models of different orders and with three different sampling distributions generating the white noise components. We apply the algorithm to a vibration dataset recorded by a high-accuracy, single-axis accelerometer, focusing on the evaluation of the estimated AR colored noise model.     

Evaluation of gravitational curvatures of a tesseroid in spherical integral kernels

Proper understanding of how the Earth’s mass distributions and redistributions influence the Earth’s gravity field-related functionals is crucial for numerous applications in geodesy, geophysics and related geosciences. Calculations of the gravitational curvatures (GC) have been proposed in geodesy in recent years. In view of future satellite missions, the sixth-order developments of the gradients are becoming requisite. In this paper, a set of 3D integral GC formulas of a tesseroid mass body have been provided by spherical integral kernels in the spatial domain. Based on the Taylor series expansion approach, the numerical expressions of the 3D GC formulas are provided up to sixth order. Moreover, numerical experiments demonstrate the correctness of the 3D Taylor series approach for the GC formulas with order as high as sixth order. Analogous to other gravitational effects (e.g., gravitational potential, gravity vector, gravity gradient tensor), numerically it is found that there exist the very-near-area problem and polar singularity problem in the GC east–east–radial, north–north–radial and radial–radial–radial components in spatial domain, and compared to the other gravitational effects, the relative approximation errors of the GC components are larger due to not only the influence of the geocentric distance but also the influence of the latitude. This study shows that the magnitude of each term for the nonzero GC functionals by a grid resolution 15\(^{{\prime } }\,\times \) 15\(^{{\prime }}\) at GOCE satellite height can reach of about 10\(^{-16}\) m\(^{-1}\) s\(^{2}\) for zero order, 10\(^{-24 }\) or 10\(^{-23}\) m\(^{-1}\) s\(^{2}\) for second order, 10\(^{-29}\) m\(^{-1}\) s\(^{2}\) for fourth order and 10\(^{-35}\) or 10\(^{-34}\) m\(^{-1}\) s\(^{2}\) for sixth order, respectively.     

Stochastic models in the DORIS position time series: estimates for IDS contribution to ITRF2014

This paper focuses on the investigation of the deterministic and stochastic parts of the Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) weekly time series aligned to the newest release of ITRF2014. A set of 90 stations was divided into three groups depending on when the data were collected at an individual station. To reliably describe the DORIS time series, we employed a mathematical model that included the long-term nonlinear signal, linear trend, seasonal oscillations and a stochastic part, all being estimated with maximum likelihood estimation. We proved that the values of the parameters delivered for DORIS data are strictly correlated with the time span of the observations. The quality of the most recent data has significantly improved. Not only did the seasonal amplitudes decrease over the years, but also, and most importantly, the noise level and its type changed significantly. Among several tested models, the power-law process may be chosen as the preferred one for most of the DORIS data. Moreover, the preferred noise model has changed through the years from an autoregressive process to pure power-law noise with few stations characterised by a positive spectral index. For the latest observations, the medians of the velocity errors were equal to 0.3, 0.3 and 0.4 mm/year, respectively, for the North, East and Up components. In the best cases, a velocity uncertainty of DORIS sites of 0.1 mm/year is achievable when the appropriate coloured noise model is taken into consideration.