Moscow Mountain

This is collection level metadata for LAS files collected by USDA – Forest Service as a part of a larger project to use LiDAR for forestry application. The lidar survey was conducted by vendor Horizon’s, 3600 Jet Drive, South Dakota. Lidar instrument was flown with Leica ALS40 over the period of Aug, 13-14, 2003. The primary goal of the study is to provide operational implementation of LiDAR technology in support of project level planning. The proposed applications of LiDAR in support of planning are: vegetation structural modeling, erosion modeling, fuels, transportation planning, timber system planning, wildlife habitat modeling, and stream quality. The Rocky Mountain Research Station will provide the development of peer-reviewed forest structural metrics and technical support in implementation of LiDAR technology. The technical specifications have been defined to specifically support vegetation modeling using LiDAR data. The project area consists of one contiguous blocks totaling 32708 hectares in Moscow Mountain, Moscow, north central Idaho. The project area consists of moderately variable topographic configurations with diverse vegetation components.
The data were delivered in ASCII format with information on return number, easting, northing, elevation and intensity for each return. The ascii files were converted to las format and classified using the Multiscale Curvature Classification (MCC) method of Evans and Hudak (2007). Evans, J.S., and A.T. Hudak. (2007) A multiscale curvature algorithm for classifying discrete return lidar in forested environments. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 45(4): 1029-1038.