This data set provides above-ground carbon density derived from LiDAR data over oil palm plantations in the Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystems (SAFE) project site located in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo in 2014. This includes the number of trees in plots and the average forest canopy per hectare at different heights. Data were collected during a project which was included in the NERC Human-modified tropical forest (HMTF) Programme.
Publication date: 2017-09-19
The work was carried out in the oil palm plantations within the Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystem (SAFE) Project, located within lowland dipterocarp forest regions of East Sabah in Malaysian Borneo. Airborne LiDAR data were acquired on 5 November 2014 using a Leica LiDAR50-II flown at 1850 m altitude on a Dornier 228201 travelling at 135 knots. The LiDAR sensor emitted pulses at 83.1 Hz with a field of view of 12.0°, and a footprint of about 40 cm diameter. The average pulse density was 7.3/m2. The Leica LiDAR50-II sensor records full waveform LiDAR, but for the purposes of this study the data were discretised, with up to four returns recorded per pulse. The LiDAR data were pre-processed by NERC's Data Analysis Node and delivered in standard LAS format. All further processing was undertaken using LAStools (Rapidlasso GmbH, LAStools). Points were classified as ground and non-ground, and a digital elevation model (DEM) was fitted to the ground returns, producing a raster of 1 m resolution. The DEM elevations were subtracted from elevations of all non-ground returns to produce a normalised point cloud, and a canopy height model (CHM) was constructed from this on a 0.5 m raster by averaging the first returns. Finally, holes in the raster were filled by averaging neighbouring cells. See supporting documentation for further information.