François Veillette
Master degree Candidate
Remote Sensing Research and Application Center (CARTEL)
University of Sherbrooke
Supervisor :
Richard Fournier, University of Sherbrooke
1984-2015 monitoring of the growth of forest stands resulting from total cuts from historical aerial photographs for fir-white birch stands
Assessing forest growth provides insight into how ecosystems recover after major disturbances. Young stands (<7 m) are currently poorly documented by traditional inventories which are mainly devoted to the evaluation of the merchantable forest. Difficult access to sites makes it difficult to measure growth for long periods. The main objective of the study is the implementation of a combined photogrammetry and LiDAR approach to monitor the growth of young fir trees while taking advantage of recent developments in photogrammetry by the SfM (structure from motion) in the processing of archival aerial photos. The technique was first used on a site on the North Coast of approximately 10 km2 which was the subject of a total cut in 1976 and for which aerial photographs (1984, 1990, 2000 and 2012) as well that field measurements are available (1988, 1989, 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008 and 2018). The stands measured by this method correspond to + – 2.04 m of the observations on the site. The procedure put in place will then be applied to other sites, thus making it possible to assess stand growth under a set of conditions.