Tracing structural changes of a complex forest by a multiple systems approach

An investigation on the combination of information from multiple sensors is presented, dealing with the assessment of forest structure and structural changes over time in the complex Mid-European forest of the Traunsteiner Stadtwald, a communal forest in South-East Bavaria, Germany. The starting point of the investigation was a data set from 2003 combining HyMap hyperspectral data and a 0.5m grid DSM calculated from HRSC data. A canopy height model was derived with the help of the official Bavarian State Survey DTM originating from 2001 LIDAR data. During the night of 18 th to 19 th of January 2007 the winter storm Kyrill caused severe damages in that forest. Using satellite data from the systems RapidEye, Cartosat-1 and ALOS Prism the changes in forest structure were analysed. Of special interest was the question whether the parameter derivation accuracy from the lower resolution satellite data are sufficient to assess the damages and to update the data bases of the Traunsteiner Stadtwald forest. The validation of the results was done on behalf of the regular forest inventory data from 1999 and 2009 respectively, supported by a LIDAR data set from 2010 for height assessment of the satellite data derived surface models.