ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. For. Glob. Change
Sec. Forest Management
This article is part of the Research TopicForest Ecosystems and Climate Adaptation: The Impact of Uneven-Aged ManagementView all 4 articles
Identification of Even-and Uneven-Aged Forest Stand Structures Using Freely Available National Airborne Lidar Data on National Forest Inventory Plots in Spruce-Beech-Fir Dominated Regions
Provisionally accepted
- Gozdarski Institut Slovenije, Ljubljana, Slovenia
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Even-aged forests are still predominant across Europe. However, due to the higher resilience and resistance of uneven-aged forests to disturbances and climate change, their proportion is expected to increase both in Europe and globally. The primary objective of this study is to demonstrate the feasibility of distinguishing between uneven-and even-aged forest stand structures on National Forest Inventory (NFI) permanent sample plots solely based on freely available, national airborne low-resolution lidar data, without the use of field-based estimates or measurements. Forest structure was described and classified based on canopy closure, dominant height, and canopy height diversity derived from the canopy height model (CHM) and voxel-based metrics calculated from the lidar point cloud. Comparable results were obtained using both approaches for assessing forest structural diversity: canopy height diversity derived from the canopy height model (CHDCHM) and from voxel-based metrics (CHDV). However, differences in vertical diversity between uneven-and even-aged stands were more pronounced when using CHM-based metrics. Therefore, we conclude that in areas with low-density lidar data, CHM analysis represents a more suitable method for evaluating the vertical heterogeneity of forest stand structures. The CHDCHM values were estimated at 1.71 for uneven-aged forests, with values of 1.24 and 1.54 observed in mature even-aged forests. In comparison, CHDV values were 2.50 for uneven-aged forests, while mature even-aged forests showed values of 2.18 and 2.24.
Keywords: Vertical heterogeneity, National Forest Inventory, Canopy height model, Voxels,, Uneven-aged and even-aged forests
Received: 24 Jun 2025; Accepted: 29 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Pintar. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Anže Martin Pintar
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