Stuart Grieve (Queen Mary, University of London): 'Forest-landscape dynamics: Terrestrial Laser Scanning as a tool to link forest structure and landscape form in 3D'

Abstract: Sediment transport in forested landscapes is governed in part by the feedbacks between biotic and abiotic processes. Trees shape landscape form gradually via root growth and tree throw and rapidly through landsliding and debris flows, where spatial variability in root properties modulates slope stability. Landscape morphology controls the availability of water, light and nutrients, driving significant variability in the structure and composition of forests across scales. A limitation of many studies exploring these feedbacks has been a lack of high resolution data of tree and landscape morphology, with many ecological studies simplifying landscape form, and many geomorphology studies simplifying forest properties.

Recent developments in Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) have unlocked our ability to quantify landscape and forest structure at unprecedented spatial scales, resolving individual branching structure and fine scale microtopographic variability in tandem. We have applied this technology to a collection of forest plots across Europe, capturing data across a climate gradient, and representing a broad range of species distributions and landscape forms. Using these data we segment individual trees, and compute individual, species, and regional level metrics, coupling these with high resolution topographic data to explore the feedbacks between biotic and abiotic processes which modulate landscape morphology in forested ecosystems across Europe.