Forestry An International Journal of Forest Research

Forestry 2019; 00, 1–13, doi:10.1093/forestry/cpz057

A comparison of UAV laser scanning, photogrammetry and airborne

laser scanning for precision inventory of small-forest properties

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Stefano Puliti1, *, Jonathan P. Dash2 , Michael S. Watt3 , Johannes Breidenbach1 and Grant D. Pearse2

1
Norwegian Institute for Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO), Division of Forest and Forest Resources. Høgskoleveien 8, 1433 Ås, Norway
2
Scion, Department of Forest Informatics. Sala Street, Private Bag 3020, Rotorua 3046, New Zealand
3
Scion, Department of Forest Informatics, 10 Kyle Street, Riccarton, Christchurch 8011, New Zealand

*Corresponding author. Tel: +47 936 78 891; E-mail: stefano.puliti@nibio.no

Received 0 Month 2019

This study addresses the use of multiple sources of auxiliary data from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and air-
borne laser scanning (ALS) data for inference on key biophysical parameters in small forest properties (5–300 ha).
We compared the precision of the estimates using plot data alone under a design-based inference with model-
based estimates that include plot data and the following four types of auxiliary data: (1) terrain-independent
variables from UAV photogrammetric data (UAV-SfM); (2) variables obtained from UAV photogrammetric data
normalized using external terrain data (UAV-SfMDTM ); (3) UAV-LS and (4) ALS data. The inclusion of remotely
sensed data increased the precision of DB estimates by factors of 1.5–2.2. The optimal data sources for top
height, stem density, basal area and total stem volume were: UAV-LS, UAV-SfM, UAV-SfMDTM and UAV-SfMDTM .
We conclude that the use of UAV data can increase the precision of stand-level estimates even under intensive
field sampling conditions.

Introduction order of a few centimetres and LS data can be collected at point

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or systems (UAS)
within the civilian market has increased dramatically over the
last five years. Within the realm of environmental monitoring,
UAVs have been used to collect data from laser scanning (LS) sen-
sors, RGB imagery or even multispectral and hyperspectral sen-
sors Salamí et al. (2014). Although their use within commercial
plantation forestry remains limited so far, there is considerable
potential for use of UAVs within this sector. A number of potential
applications have already emerged that include forest inventory
(Puliti et al., 2017; Puliti et al., 2015; Wallace et al., 2016), post-
harvest site assessment (Goodbody et al., 2017; Pierzchała et al.,
2014; Puliti et al., 2018a; Talbot et al., 2017), characterization
of weed competition (Watt et al., 2017) and detection of tree
disease (Dash et al., 2017).
Rapid growth in the use of UAVs is predicted to continue
(Hugenholtz et al., 2012; Nex and Remondino, 2014; Watts
et al., 2012) as they offer greater operational flexibility compared
to other platforms (e.g. manned airborne) and can be used for
data collection under a wider variety of atmospheric conditions
(Whitehead and Hugenholtz, 2014). Among available aerial
platforms, UAVs can provide very fine resolution and data density.
Imagery collected from a UAV typically has a resolution in the
densities of between 60-1500 points per m2 (Puliti et al., 2015).
However, due to range limitations, civilian UAVs are currently
constrained for use over areas of up to 10 km2 when complete
coverage is required (Dandois and Ellis, 2013; Whitehead et al.,
2014) using light-weight sensors and considerably smaller areas
when deploying heavier and more energy consumptive LS sys-
tems. Above this threshold, alternative platforms (e.g. manned
aircraft) become more cost-effective at obtaining complete
coverage (Heaphy et al., 2017). This restriction may limit the use
of UAVs for major data acquisitions across large forests. However,
UAVs could play an important role in collection of data to support
precision forestry practices in small forest properties, or within
plantation stands of a given age for a particular purpose (e.g.
inventory, road planning) where an absence of high-quality data
can be economically and environmentally costly. Recent research
also shows that using partial UAV coverage in larger plantations
could be a cost-effective option for forest inventory (Puliti et al.,
2018b). The use of UAVs for forest inventory is one of the most
promising applications of UAV technology.
Within forest inventory applications three-dimensional point
clouds are among the most useful form of remotely sensed data
as these data have been reliably shown to accurately predict
key forest biophysical variables such as height and volume in

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Forestry
commercial forest settings (Dash et al., 2015; Næsset, 2002;
Watt and Watt, 2013). Point clouds can be generated either
through LS (UAV-LS) (Jaakkola et al., 2010; Wallace et al., 2012)
or through the use of imagery captured from digital still cameras
(Dandois and Ellis, 2013; Lisein et al., 2013). LS systems emit
laser pulses and record the time-of-flight for reflected energy
to be returned to an onboard sensor. Combined with positional
information on the sensor’s location, a three-dimensional point
cloud representation of the scanned area can be produced. Point
clouds can also be obtained using a combination of computer
vision (Structure from Motion; SfM) and photogrammetry tech-
niques. Unlike LS, SfM methods rely on passive optical sensors
that do not penetrate the canopy (Lowe, 2004). Several authors
have reported the predictive accuracy of models linking either
UAV-SfM or UAV-LS data with ground reference forest biophysical
variables (Dandois and Ellis, 2013; Dandois et al., 2015; Lisein et
al., 2013; Puliti et al., 2015; Wallace et al., 2016). Recent research
also demonstrates the utility of explanatory variables extracted
from photogrammetry that do not require a digital terrain model
(DTM), i.e. DTM-independent variables, for prediction of forest
volume (Giannetti et al., 2018), which is an approach that could
be useful in densely forested areas or other situations where it is
difficult to obtain a DTM. Despite the diverse range of UAV-based
approaches that are available for forest inventory, there is still a
lack of understanding of how the uncertainty of these estimates
compares among these methods and estimates obtained from
only plot data.
The increasing availability of remotely sensed data has been
matched by the development of inferential frameworks that
enable a rigorous estimation of forest biophysical parameters
(e.g. growing stock volume or above ground biomass). Tradi-
tional plot-based inventories adopt design-based (DB) inference,
whereby a probability sample is selected from the population
according to an appropriate sampling design. For DB estimators
the uncertainty is usually expressed through the variance, or the
standard error, which is a fixed quantity given the population,
sampling design and the estimator. The integration of point cloud
data collected from UAVs with other sources of inventory infor-
mation raises challenges for appropriate statistical inference. The
inferential framework adopted is governed, among others, by the
kind of sample (probability vs non-probability) and the sample
size. For small forests, where complete UAV data coverage is pos-
sible, model-assisted and model-based (MB) variance estimators
can be applied. While the first requires a probability sample within
the area of interest (i.e. internal data), the second allows for the
use of external field plot data. Thanks to the possibility of using
external data, MB inference is a more appealing inferential frame-
work for UAV-based forest inventories since UAV acquisitions are
generally performed on small areas and are associated with the
measurement of only few plots, if any. Thus, to provide practical
insights in the use of UAVs in forest inventory, in this study, we
assessed only the MB framework as it does not require an internal
probability sample of field plots. The uncertainty of the estimates
obtained from this form of inference is based on the uncertainty
of the model parameter estimates and the residual variance
(Gregoire, 1998; McRoberts, 2006; McRoberts et al., 2013). It may,
however, be interesting to note that, if an internal probability
2
sample is available to fit a model, as in our case study, some of
the considered MB variance estimators can also be interpreted as
being DB model-assisted (Mandallaz, 2013).
The comparison of different auxiliary data types from UAV
is clearly important for determining the contribution towards
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improvement of the precision of the inventory estimates and
how this information can be most economically efficiently inte-
grated into forest inventory. However, in regard to UAVs very
little research has compared the precision of DB estimates, using
only plot data, to that of MB estimates. Within a 7330 ha for-
est area Puliti et al. (2017) compared the precision of hybrid
estimation using partial-coverage UAV data and field plots to
two other methods. These two methods included DB inference
using only field plots and a MB approach that utilized wall-
to-wall airborne LS data collected from manned aircraft (air-
borne laser scanning [ALS]). Compared to the use of only field
plots, the hybrid estimation using UAV data was 4.4 times more
efficient. The largest precision was obtained through complete
coverage of ALS data that had a relative efficiency 1.6 times
greater than that obtained through use of the partial-coverage
UAV data. However, we are unaware of any research that has
undertaken a similar comparison within small-moderate sized
forests, with a large degree of stand uniformity, where com-
plete coverage is available from a UAV. Furthermore, to date, no
attempt has been made to compare the precision obtainable
either from UAV-SfM or UAV-LS data under rigorous estimation
frameworks.
The research was undertaken in a Pinus radiata D. Don
plantation located in the central North Island, New Zealand. In
New Zealand, ∼30 per cent of the national plantation estate
is contained within fragmented small or medium sized forests
(5–300 ha). These forests represent a challenging sampling
problem as they can be quite variable, but growers are often
reluctant to invest in an adequate field plot sample size to
properly characterize them due to their relatively small value.
In this study, we sought to identify and compare suitable
datasets and inferential frameworks for incorporating UAV data
for inventory of small forests. Remotely sensed data used in
the analyses were extracted from the following four sources:
(1) DTM-independent variables extracted from photogrammetry
(UAV-SfM); (2) variables obtained from the UAV photogrammetric
point cloud normalized using an accurate DTM from an ALS
survey (UAV-SfMDTM ); (3) UAV point cloud data extracted from
LS (UAV-LS) and (iv) ALS point cloud data (see Table 1 for
summary).
The objective of this study was to assess (1) the contribution
of UAV and ALS data to the precision of the inventory estimates
and (2) if the precision increases, which type of UAV auxiliary
data leads to the most precise estimates. Such questions were
addressed by comparing the estimated population parameters
(means) and their uncertainty for four key forest biophysical
parameters (top height, stand density, basal area and total stem
volume) using the following two inventory approaches (1) DB
inference using plot data and (2) MB inference using plot data
and wall-to-wall coverage of UAV-SfM, UAV-SfMDTM , UAV-LS or
ALS data. Furthermore, analytical and bootstrap estimators were
used for variance estimation.

Table 1 Description of datasets used to provide explanatory variables to model forest inventory attributes
Dataset Dataset description
UAV-SfM DTM-independent variables extracted from UAV photogrammetry
UAV-SfMDTM Variables obtained from UAV imagery and the height-normalized SfM point cloud using a DTM acquired from a
pre-existing conventional ALS survey
UAV-LS Variables describing point cloud data extracted from UAV LS
ALS Variables describing point cloud data extracted from conventional airborne LS collected from a manned aircraft
Materials
Study area
The study area, which was located close to Rotorua, New Zealand
(38.235 S, 176.156 E, 380 m a.s.l.) was a 40 ha Pinus radiata
plantation established in 1993. The stand was pruned to 6 m
above ground and thinned from an initial density of ∼600 stems
per hectare (sph) to around 350 sph in a single thin-to-waste
silvicultural intervention at age 9.
Field data
A total of 30 bounded circular 0.06 ha slope-adjusted field plots
were measured to provide data for this study resulting in a
sampling intensity of 4.5 per cent. The locations of these plots
were selected according to a systematic grid with a spacing of
100 m × 100 m (Figure 1).
Plot measurements, which were taken during June 2017,
included diameter at breast height (DBH) measured at 1.4 m for
all trees within the plot. Height was measured on a sub-sample of
eight trees, covering the DBH range within the plot and being free
from excessive lean or malformation. These measurements were
used to fit a Petterson regression (Petterson, 1955) using ordinary
least square (OLS) between DBH and tree height for each plot that
was subsequently used to estimate tree height for all plot trees
where tree height was not measured. Top height (H) was then
estimated as the average height of the six largest trees per plot,
corresponding to the 100 largest trees per hectare, where largest
was defined in terms of DBH. Plot basal area (G) and stand density
(N) were estimated from the plot measurements. A compatible
volume and taper model (Goulding and Murray, 1976) with
coefficients estimated from a nationwide dataset, was used to
predict stem volume and upper stem diameters based on the tree
measurements recorded. These data were processed using an
optimal log-bucking algorithm embedded in a commercial forest
yield prediction software package (YTGEN, Silmetra, Tokoroa, New
Zealand). A set of log-grade specifications and prices provided
by the forest manager were used to segregate trees into log-
products using the log-bucking algorithm designed to maximize
economic value. The total stem volume (TSV) was predicted
for each plot by summing the total volume assigned to both
merchantable and non-merchantable log-products.
Summary statistics for all of the plots included in the study
(Table 2) show relatively small variation in top height with a mean
of 36.3 m and range of 33.5– 38.6 m. Mean values for N, G and
TSV ranged almost twofold across the plots (Table 2).
Precision inventory of small-forest properties
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Remotely sensed data
UAV LS data
LS data were acquired using a Velodyne HDL-32E (Velodyne, San
Jose, USA) scanner embedded in a LidarUSA ‘Snoopy A-Series’
LS system (LidarUSA, Alabama, USA). The laser scanner was
mounted on an Altus ORC4 remotely piloted helicopter platform
(Altus Ltd., Hamilton, New Zealand). A flying altitude of around
80 m above the local terrain was used and the flight plan ensured
that there was considerable side overlap to remove the possibility
of data voids. All flight manoeuvres and altitude adjustments
were made outside of the area of interest to avoid the possibility
of flight artefacts in the dataset. The laser scanner is only capable
of recording a single return but produced a pulse density of 712
pulses/m2 and a pulse spacing of 0.04 m. The LS of the area
required a total of 78 min, which included three flights lasting
35, 20 and 23 min.
The Velodyne HDL-32E laser scanner has a rotating array of
32 lasers, providing a maximum potential ‘scan angle’ of 180
degrees from the Snoopy system. Only the inner laser beams
are equiangular and returns acquired with a large off-nadir angle
induce substantial artefacts and noise in the point cloud data
when acquired from a UAV. To minimize these effects, only data
from the inner-most lasers (±8 degrees off nadir) were retained
and a sector reduction was applied to limit the effective scan
angle to +/−25 degrees across track.
Flight line matching, ground classification, noise removal and
the identification of overlap points were carried out in the Ter-
rasolid software (Terrasolid Oy, Espoo, Finland). Subsequently,
points classified as overlap were removed to ensure a more even
density over the entire study area. A transect of the UAV-LS and
UAV-SfMDTM point cloud is shown in Figure 2.
A total of 28 ALS explanatory variables were calculated from
the UAV-LS point cloud data coincident with the field plots. The
variables included height percentile (p10 , p20 , . . ., p100 ), density
variables (d10 , d20 , . . ., d100 ) and the mean of eight textural
variables (mean, variance, homogeneity, contrast, dissimilarity,
entropy, second moment and correlation) calculated based on
the canopy height model using the R package ‘glcm’ (Haralick
et al., 1973; Zvoleff, 2016). The study area was then tessellated
using a grid of 600 m2 cells, which matched the plot area,
for which the same variables as used for the plots were then
computed from the UAV-LS data.
ALS data
The ALS data for this study were collected in December 2017
using a Trimble AX60i scanner with a Trimble AP50 inertial motion
3
Forestry
Figure 1 Overview of the sampling design for the acquisition of field data.
Table 2 Summary statistics for the ground reference data for top height (H), number of trees per hectare (N), basal area (G) and total stem volume
(TSV)
Variable Mean
Top height (m) 36.3
Stand density (stems ha−1 ) 366
Basal area (m2 ha−1 ) 65.7
TSV (m3 ha−1 ) 781
system and GNSS receiver. Data capture was completed using
a manned aircraft system. Campaign settings included a flying
height of 700 m above ground level, pulse rate of 360 kHz and a
swath side overlap of 60 per cent. The scanning system operated
in multiple return mode and had an effective laser footprint
size of 0.35 m. The resulting dataset had a pulse density of
10.2 pulses/m2 and an on-ground point spacing of 0.31 m. Initial
processing was carried out by the supplier using Terrasolid and
included ground and noise classification. Subsequent process-
ing was carried out in the LAStools software package (Rapid-
Lasso GMBH, Gilching, Germany) and included triangulation of
a terrain model using the ground classified points, further noise
removal and normalization of elevations of non-ground returns
to heights above the local ground level. The same variables
that were extracted for the UAV-LS data were extracted for the
ALS data, including textural variables from the canopy height
model.
4
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Standard deviation Range
1.4 33.5– 38.6
54.4 233– 450
7.4 45.9– 85.0
92.08 519– 1007
UAV photogrammetric data
Full coverage imagery was acquired using a DJI ZenMuse X3 12
MP camera (DJI, Shenzhen, China) mounted on a DJI Matrice 600
UAV. Dense overlapping images were acquired for the generation
of point cloud data using Agisoft PhotoScan (Agisoft, 2017). Flight
altitude was set at 300 m above ground level and image overlap
to 95–90 per cent front and side overlap. Imagery was collected
under clear sky conditions within a single flight lasting 20 min.
Five ground control points were established on the ground in open
areas and/or canopy gaps and located using a Trimble Geo 7X
differential GNSS system.
Photogrammetric processing of the UAV imagery resulted in
a dense point cloud (approximately 60 points/m2 ) and an ortho-
mosaic with a ground sampling distance of 10 cm. A total of 31
point cloud explanatory variables were extracted including height
percentiles.

Figure 2 Detail of an area including a field plot to highlight the differences between the horizontal (a–c) and vertical (d) representations of the canopy
using: a) the UAV orthomosaic (shown for visual reference only); (b) the UAV-SfM canopy height model; (c) the UAV-LS canopy height model; and (d)
the height normalized UAV-SfMDTM and UAV-LS data.
Two sets of variables were calculated from the UAV pho-
togrammetric data, namely the UAV-SfM (i.e. DTM-independent)
and the UAV-SfMDTM variables (from the normalized point
cloud). The former included a total of 163 explanatory variables
extracted from the raw point cloud without any operations to
alter the height values (i.e. normalization). The use of these
variables mainly aims at describing the variations in height and
spectral response of the top of the canopy. Among the most
relevant DTM-independent variables indicated by Giannetti et al.
(2018) were textural variables calculated based on the digital
surface model (i.e. top of the canopy), local maxima counts and
spectral variables. The UAV-SfMDTM variables included a total of 31
variables including height percentiles (p10 , p20 , . . ., p100 ), density
variables (d10 , d20 , . . ., d100 ), the mean and standard deviation
of textural variables calculated on the canopy height model and
the mean of the red, green and blue digital number values (R, G
and B).
Methods
Overview
In this study we estimated four forest biophysical parameters
(i.e. H, N, G and TSV) according to MB inference using field plot
Precision inventory of small-forest properties
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data and wall-to-wall coverage of UAV-SfM, UAV-SfMDTM , UAV-LS
or ALS data. The DB estimate (i.e. using only plot data) was then
used to assess the efficiency of using additional remotely sensed
data. Within this study, we considered an efficient estimator
one that had a smaller variance estimate compared to that of
purely field-based estimates, while not showing obvious signs of
bias. Precision and accuracy for the four biophysical parameters
were compared among the possible combinations of data source
(UAV-SfM, UAV-SfMDTM , UAV-LS and ALS). The bias of the estima-
tors of the mean was assessed by: (1) scrutinizing the model fit
graphically and by the mean of differences between observed
and predicted values; (2) comparing the first two moments of the
distributions (for the sample and for the whole population) of the
selected explanatory variables and (3) checking whether the MB
estimates were within DB confidence intervals. Furthermore, the
uncertainty of the variance was assessed by comparing analyti-
cal and bootstrap variance estimators.
Inference
This section describes the methodology used to estimate the
 μ̂)) for each biophysical variable
mean (μ̂) and variance (Var(
using both DB and MB inference. In the latter case the variance
5
Forestry
was expressed as the mean squared error (MSE) for a population
U composed of j = {1, . . . , N} sampling units.
For the DB estimate we assumed the field data (S) to represent
a simple random sample of size n and a direct estimator of the
mean is:
1 
n
μ̂DB = yi ((1))
n
i=1
where yi is equal to the ground reference value of the biophysical
variable of interest for the ith field plot (i = 1, . . ., n). The DB
 (μ̂DB )) was estimated assuming simple
variance of the mean (Var
random sampling by the variance estimator:
  2
 μ̂DB = sY
Var ((2))
n
s2Y
where is the sample variance.
For the MB inference, we fitted separate multiple linear
regression models for the different combinations of ground
reference biophysical parameters of interest and explanatory
variables extracted from the remotely sensed data (UAV-
SfM, UAV-SfMDTM , UAV-LS, or ALS data). Prior to using these
models for the estimation of population parameters, their
validity was evaluated according to a visual assessment of the
scatterplots of observed vs predicted values. This assessment
aimed at identifying potential signs of heteroscedasticity and
non-linearity. Further evaluation of the model included the
assessment of the model fit (R2 Adj ), root mean square error
(RMSE), mean difference (MD) and RMSE and MD values as
percentage of the observed mean (RMSE% and MD% ). The RMSE
and MD were determined by leave-one-out cross validation as
the square root of the mean of the squared residuals and the
mean of the residuals, respectively.
The linear models had the form:
 
yS = X S β S + εS , εS ∼ N 0, σε2 W ((3))
where X S is a n × (r + 1) matrix, r is the number of selected
explanatory variables, β S is a column vector of model parameters
of length r + 1, and ε S is a column vector of random errors with
zero expectation, of length n. The residual variance is expressed
as the product of the mean squared residual (σε2 ) and a n ×
n weight matrix W (Breidenbach et al., 2016). W is an identity
matrix under homoscedasticity, a diagonal matrix with weights
based on a variance model under heteroscedasticity, or a matrix
where the off-diagonal elements contain weights that result
from a model describing the correlation pattern in the residuals
in the case of autocorrelation.
The population mean of a small forest property is estimated
as:
μ̂MB = ιU T X U β̂ S ((4))
where β̂ S is a vector of estimated coefficients and, as defined
by Saarela et al. (2016a) ιU is a vector of length N where each
6
element is equal to 1/N and X U is a N × (r + 1) matrix of
explanatory variables from the remotely sensed auxiliary data.
The mean square error (MSE) estimator is:
 
 p μ̂MB = ιU T X U Cov(
 β̂ S )X U T ιU
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MSE ((5))
where the subscript p indicates that this estimator incorporates
only the uncertainty of the estimates of the regression parame-
ters. In our case study, where the models are fitted on internal
data (field plots from within the area of interest) based on a
probability sample, this estimator can also be interpreted as
being model-assisted (design-based) and suitable for internal
models (Mandallaz,
 2013). The covariance matrix of the model
parameters Cov β̂ S is estimated according to
  ε̂TS ε̂S  T 
 β̂ S =
Cov XS XS +  ((6))
n−r−1
where ε̂S is a n-length vector of estimated residuals over the
sample S and  is a matrix that describes the variance and
correlation of the residuals (Pinheiro and Bates, 2006, p. 203). The
gls function of the R-package (R Core Team, 2017) nlme (Pinheiro
et al., 2019) was used to estimate the model parameters. An esti-
mator of the mean squared error (MSE  (μ̂MB )) that incorporates
the uncertainty due to presence of heteroscedasticity and auto-
correlation has been previously adopted by Breidenbach et al.
(2016), McRoberts (2006) and McRoberts et al. (2018). Based on
the formulation by Breidenbach et al. (2016) such an estimator
can be expressed as:
     
 prh μ̂MB
MSE =  p μ̂MB + ιU T Cov
MSE  σ̂ 2 ιU
ε
  
N 
N
=  p μ̂MB + 1
MSE σ̂j σ̂k ˆ jk ((7))
N2
j=1 k=1
 
 σ̂ 2 is the N × N covariance matrix of estimated grid
where Cov
ε
cell residual variances with the elements σ̂j σ̂k ˆ jk and the sub-
script prhs indicates that the estimator accounts for parameter
uncertainty, residual heteroscedasticity and spatial correlation.
In equation (7), the first component is estimated according to
equation (5) and incorporates the uncertainty due to model
parameter estimation while the second component incorporates
the uncertainty due to residual error. Specifically, σ̂j and σ̂k repre-
sent the residual variation estimated for the grid cells j = k = {1,
. . ., N} while ˆ jk is the estimated correlation between two grid cell
predictions j and k due to autocorrelation. See Breidenbach et al.
(2016) for more information on the estimation of ˆ jk . For each of
the possible combinations of variables of interest and auxiliary
data we fitted generalized least squares (GLS) models with and
without the correlation structure and with and without weights to
accommodate heteroscedasticity. An improvement in the model
over OLS regression was defined if the inclusion of autocorrelation
and heteroscedasticity in the GLS models resulted in a decrease
of two AIC points.

In those cases where homoscedasticity (σ̂j σ̂k = σ̂ε2 ) and null
autocorrelation (ˆ jk = 1) are assumed by the model, the estima-
tor in equation (7). reduces to:
    2
MSE  μ̂MB + σ̂ε
 pr μ̂MB = MSE ((8))
N models.
where the subscript pr indicates that the MSE estimator accounts
for parameter and residual uncertainty and σ̂ε is estimated from
the model residual variance.
Estimation of sampling statistics
The standard error (SE) is given as the square root of the esti-
mated variance or MSE of the mean estimate and standard
error as a percentage of the mean (SE% ). The relative efficiency
(RE) is given as the ratio between the estimated variance under
the DB inference and the MSE of a MB estimator (i.e. RE =
Var  (μ̂MB )). The RE is a factor that describes by how
 (μ̂DB )/MSE
much the number of field plots would need to be changed in
the DB inference to obtain the same level of precision as using
another estimator. Because the RE is a ratio of variances, it is
only meaningful for approximately unbiased estimators. Thus,
for the specific case where a total of n = 30 plots were used
in case A, a value of RE = 2 would correspond to the need for
twice the number of plots (n = 60) to obtain the same level of
precision.
In addition to the precision we assessed the potential pres-
ence of bias in the estimators. An estimator was considered
unbiased if the following three different criteria were met: (1)
MD close to zero as expected for linear regression models; (2)
equality of the first two moments (i.e. mean and variance) from
the distribution of the explanatory variables in the sample and
in the population and (3) the estimated mean needed to be
within the 95 per cent confidence interval of the DB estimate.
For assessing the uncertainty of estimated variances we also
adopted a non-parametric bootstrap (Efron and Tibshirani, 1994;
equation (6.6), also referred to as ‘bootstrapping pairs’, McRoberts
et al., 2018), with nboot = 1000 iterations as an alternative to the
analytical estimators described above. According to this method
at each bth iteration we (1) selected a simple random sample
with replacement of size equal to that of the original data;
(2) refitted the model to the resampled data; (3) applied the
model to the grid cells covering the entire area and (4) esti-
mate the mean (μ̂b ) according to the MB estimator. Finally,
we estimated the bootstrapping mean and variance according
to:
1
nboot
 estimator over-estimated the MSE ( SE analytic ranging from 1.3 to
μ̂boot = μ̂b ((9))
nboot
b=1
nboot

1 2
 μ̂boot ) =
Var( μ̂b − μ̂boot ((10))
nboot − 1
b=1
Precision inventory of small-forest properties
Results
Models
The visual assessment of the observed against predicted values
using the fitted OLS models (Figure 3) revealed that there was no
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serious systematic lack of fit, which justified the adoption of linear
Top height (H) was accurately predicted from all three terrain-
normalized data sources (UAV-SfMDTM , UAV-LS and ALS) with
adjusted-R2 ranging from 0.64 to 0.73 and RMSE ranging from
0.76 to 0.91 m (Table 3). The upper percentiles (p90 , p95 and p100 )
were the most important predictors within these models. The
UAV-SfM dataset that was not normalized using terrain infor-
mation had a smaller goodness-of-fit (R2 Adj = 0.17) and larger
RMSE (1.33 m) compared to the other models using different
source of auxiliary data. In respect to stand density (N), the UAV-
SfMDTM model was the one with largest R2 Adj (0.69), followed
by UAV-LS (0.57) and UAV-SfM (0.55). Metrics utilizing imagery-
related features, as well as some mid-canopy point cloud metrics,
were important in these models. In contrast, the model based on
ALS data used a single height percentile and produced a much
weaker model (R2 Adj = 0.34). For basal area (G), the use of UAV
photogrammetric data (UAV-SfM or UAV-SfMDTM ) yielded larger
R2 Adj ranging from 0.49 to 0.63 compared to UAV-LS or ALS data
(R2 Adj ranging from 0.21 to 0.33). For the three datasets acquired
from the UAV, density and textural variables were most useful for
predicting G while the model fitted to ALS data used only d100 .
As with basal area, the plot-level UAV-SfMDTM and UAV-SfM total
stem volume (TSV) models had better model fit (R2 Adj = 0.65 and
R2 Adj = 0.57) than UAV-LS (R2 Adj = 0.45) or ALS (R2 Adj = 0.37).
A mixture of density, percentile and textural variables were
selected as predictors of TSV for the three UAV-acquired datasets
(Table 3). According to a two-sided t test, the MD was not
significantly different from zero (P-value always > 0.05) for any
of the combinations of biophysical variables and auxiliary data
type.
The inclusion of information on heteroscedasticity and spa-
tial autocorrelation did not improve the models (based on AIC).
However, the quantification of spatial autocorrelation can often
be difficult with forest inventory data. Therefore, even though
including spatial autocorrelation did not improve the models we
still included the standard error estimates considering spatial
autocorrelation using the estimated autocorrelation parameters.
The comparison of the analytical estimates with those
estimated using the bootstrapping procedure revealed ratios
SE
( SE analytic ) > 1.1 or <0.9 for half of the tested combinations
bootstrap
of biophysical parameters and auxiliary data (see Table 4). This
suggested a lack of bias in the estimator or the parameter
estimates for half of the studied combinations. For the remaining
half, the results indicated that for H and N the analytical
SE
bootstrap
1.6). On the contrary, for G and TSV there may have been some
SE
small underestimation of the MSE ( SE analytic = 0.8). This indicates
bootstrap
that the analytical MSE estimators are generally applicable
with the utilized linear models. Interestingly, the indication of
potential presence of bias in the analytical MSE estimators was
always associated with UAV-SfMDTM data. Because of the small
7
Forestry
Figure 3 Scatterplots matrix of the observed vs predicted values using OLS models for all variables of interest (columns) and remotely sensed data
sources studied (rows). The line represents the 1:1 line.
differences between analytical and bootstrapping estimates,
only the analytical estimates were used for further comparison.
The inclusion of RS data increased the precision of population
parameter estimates compared to the DB approach (i.e. field
data alone) in 10 out of the 16 (62 per cent) combinations of
response variables and data sources (Table 4). Overall, for 14
of the 16 combinations of biophysical parameters and auxiliary
data, the estimated mean was within the 95 per cent confidence
interval of the DB estimate. In contrast to the assessment of
the MD (Table 3), which suggested no presence of significant
systematic errors in the model predictions, for some explanatory
variables the mean and variance varied substantially between
the sample and the population distributions, thus suggesting a
possible presence of bias of the estimator. This was particularly
8
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noticeable for the H-model using UAV-SfM data and theN-model
using UAV-LS data (see Figure 4).
For the same models as in Figure 4 (H-model using UAV-SfM
data andN-model using UAV-LS data), the mean estimate was
either outside or close to the edge of the 95 per cent confidence
intervals of the DB estimate (see Figure 5). Further potential bias
was noticeable for the MB estimators of G and TSV using UAV-
SfM data, for which the estimated means were smaller than
the lower bound of the 95 per cent confidence interval for the
DB estimate (see Figure 5). No differences in the sample and
population distributions of explanatory variables were found for
these models.
When averaged across the four RS data sources, the model
based estimates resulted in an average RE for H, N, G and
 Precision inventory of small-forest properties

Table 3 Summary of the developed models. The models that resulted in the most precise model-based estimates for each of the biophysical
parameters are highlighted

Variable Auxiliary Explanatory variablesa R2Adj RMSE RMSE% MD MD%

of interest data

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H UAV-SfM nintensity1Q 0.17 1.33 3.68 0.00 −0.01
UAV-SfMDTM p95 , crown 0.73 0.76 2.08 0.01 0.02
UAV-LS p95 , p100 0.72 0.76 2.11 0.001 0.006
ALS p90 , ntrees 0.64 0.91 2.50 −0.02 −0.05
N UAV-SfM SDdissimilarity , maxgreen 0.55 38.22 10.44 0.70 0.19
UAV-SfMDTM d90 , blue,SDdissimilarity 0.69 34.06 9.34 0.16 0.04
UAV-LS p30 ,d50 , homogeneity, 0.57 39.8 10.87 −0.11 −0.03
second moment
ALS p60 0.34 45.96 12.55 −0.36 −0.09
G UAV-SfM mean, homogeneity 0.49 5.54 8.42 −0.05 −0.07
UAV-SfMDTM d90 , d100 , dissimilarity, 0.63 4.97 7.55 0.15 0.23
SDmean , SDvariance
UAV-LS variance 0.21 7.01 10.66 −0.008 −0.008
ALS d100 0.33 6.36 9.67 −0.05 −0.08
TSV UAV-SfM mean, homogeneity 0.57 62.75 8.04 −0.54 −0.07
UAV-SfMDTM p95 , d100 , mean, 0.65 60.57 7.76 −0.55 −0.07
dissimilarity
UAV-LS d10 , d90 , mean 0.45 77.58 9.93 −2.02 −0.25
ALS p30 0.37 75.99 9.73 −0.55 −0.07

an
intensity1Q : number of points within the first quartile of intensity value (see Giannetti et al., 2018), ntrees: average number of local maxima,
crown: average crown size, maxgreen : maximum green value, blue: mean blue value, p10 -p100 : height percentiles, d10 -d100 : density variables, mean,
homogeneity, second moment, dissimilarity, variance: mean textural variables, SDdissimilarity : standard deviation textural variables.

TSV of 1.4, 1.2, 1.2 and 1.5, respectively (see Table 4). When
excluding models leading to potentially biased estimators, the
largest RE for H, N, G and TSV were obtained using the UAV-
LS (RE = 2.2), UAV-SfM (RE = 1.5), UAV-SfMDTM (RE = 1.6)
and UAV-SfMDTM data (RE = 2.1), respectively. For N the largest
RE was actually found for UAV-LS data, however the estimate
was determined as potentially biased (see Figure 4) and thus
excluded from further comparison. Gains in RE for H were largest
using either the UAV-LS (RE = 2.2) or ALS data (RE = 1.5) but
non-existent when relying on the UAV photogrammetric data
(RE = 1.0). Other than for TSV, UAV-LS resulted in consistently
larger RE than ALS. The use of predictor variables extracted
from a normalized photogrammetric point cloud (i.e. UAV-
SfMDTM ) resulted in consistently larger RE than the use of
DTM-independent variables (i.e. UAV-SfM) for almost all biophysi-
cal parameters. Using UAV-SfMDTM data provided marked RE gains
over UAV-SfM for G (1.6 vs 1.0) and TSV (2.1 vs 1.1) (Table 4).
Discussion
Our results highlight the advantages of using UAVs to support
inventory data acquisition for small forests, in which it may not
be economically feasible to undertake traditional manned aerial
survey. Field plots and UAV data for this study were measured
by using a well-established commercial contractor. Using these
costs as a basis for comparison, the cost of acquiring the UAV
data could have paid for the collection of an additional 17 field
plots (for a total of 47 plots). The largest REs in this study, which
were achieved using of remotely sensed auxiliary data, ranged
from 2.1 for total stem volume using UAV-SfMDTM data to 2.2 for
top height using UAV-LS data. This indicates more than twice
as many field plots would be required to provide an equivalent
level of precision to that obtained using auxiliary data from the
UAV. In addition to the economic value of these data, UAV-LS
in regions with little to no terrain data would offer substantial
additional benefits such as improved information for harvest
planning, while UAV imagery would offer a high-resolution map
of the area that may further aid in harvest planning and iden-
tifying areas of damage or abnormal yield (e.g. wind damage)
that may be missed using field plots alone. Imprecise forest
inventory estimates remain a significant problem in the study
context where measurement of a larger sample size can be
deemed too expensive for smaller forests. This can lead to sub-
optimal transactions during forest sales or inefficient market-
ing and logistics following harvest. Integrating UAV data in the
manner we have investigated offers higher precision forest inven-
tory estimates alongside valuable novel information for forest
managers.
Despite these benefits, the gains reported here using MB infer-
ence were relatively small compared to previous research that
has shown an RE of 2.5– 8.0 (Ene et al., 2012; Næsset et al., 2013;
Puliti et al., 2017) for volume using ALS data as the auxiliary vari-
able. These modest gains in RE reflect the relatively homogenous
nature of the sampled stand and the relatively larger sampling
intensity of field data compared to previous studies. The smaller

9
Forestry

Table 4 Estimated biophysical parameters according to the studied inferential frameworks (DB and model-based) and data sources in terms of
 μ̂DB )) or mean squared error (MSE(
estimated mean (μ̂), variance (Var(  μ̂MB )) of the mean, standard error (SE), standard error as a percentage of
 μ̂DB ) and MSE(
the estimated mean for case A (SE% ), relative efficiency as a ratio between Var(  μ̂MB ). The models that resulted in the most precise MB
estimates for each of the biophysical parameters are highlighted

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 μ̂)or MSE(
 μ̂) b SEanalytic
Variable of Data used in Inferential μ̂ Var( SE SE% RE nc SEbootstrap
interest the estimation frameworka

H Field plots DB 36.3 0.1 0.26 0.7 - 30 -

UAV-SfM MB 36.1 0.1 0.3 0.7 1.0 31 1.1
UAV-SfMDTM 36.9 0.1 0.3 0.7 1.0 29 1.6
UAV-LS 36.3 0.0 0.2 0.5 2.2 66 1.3
ALS 36.4 0.0 0.2 0.6 1.5 46 1.3
N Field plots DB 366.1 98.7 9.9 2.7 - 30 -
UAV-SfM MB 355.9 65.7 8.1 2.3 1.5 45 1.1
UAV-SfMDTM 362.0 84.6 9.2 2.5 1.2 35 1.2
UAV-LS 350.5 59.4 7.7 2.2 1.7 50 0.9
ALS 361.0 176.9 13.3 3.7 0.6 17 1.5
G Field plots DB 65.8 1.8 1.4 2.1 - 30 -
UAV-SfM MB 62.6 1.8 1.3 2.1 1.0 31 1.0
UAV-SfMDTM 64.4 1.1 1.1 1.6 1.6 49 0.8
UAV-LS 64.6 1.8 1.4 2.1 1.0 30 0.9
ALS 64.7 1.5 1.2 1.9 1.3 38 1.0
TSV Field plots DB 780.9 282.6 16.8 2.2 - 30 -
UAV-SfM MB 739.1 246.8 15.7 2.1 1.1 34 0.9
UAV-SfMDTM 769.0 131.6 11.5 1.5 2.1 64 0.8
UAV-LS 786.5 203.6 14.3 1.8 1.4 42 0.8
ALS 766.2 218.4 14.8 1.9 1.3 39 1.0

a The adopted inferential frameworks consisted in either DB or MB.

b Forthe DB estimator the uncertainty is expressed as variance, while for the MB inference as mean square error.
c n = number of plots required to obtain the same level of precision as using field data alone.

Figure 4 distribution of the explanatory variables for the sample and for the entire population models for two example models. The first row represents
the H model fitted using UAV-SfMDTM data and the second row the N model fitted using UAV-LS data.

variation in stand biophysical variables, associated with a rather
large sampling intensity, resulted in great precision of the DB
estimate and reduced model performance.
In contrast to this study where a large number of field plots
were measured to obtain a relatively small uncertainty of the
field-based estimates, in operational conditions only a portion
of these would be measured (i.e. one day of work corresponding
to approximately eight field plots in the study forest conditions).
With such limited number of plots the uncertainty of the DB mean
estimate is likely to increase substantially compared to this study.
In such conditions, the MB framework may be attractive as it
enables the use of external data to augment small local field
data acquisitions for modelling purposes. Within the UAV realm,
Puliti et al. (2017) showed how the use of external data in UAV MB
and hybrid inference can substantially increase the RE. Thus, fur-
ther research should address possibilities to develop large scale

10

Figure 5 Point estimates and 95 per cent confidence intervals for the studied forest biophysical parameters, estimators and remotely sensed data
sources. The dashed horizontal lines represent the 95 per cent confidence interval for the DB estimate.
models using field and UAV data acquired over different areas
and apply them to newly acquired UAV data and a small sample
of field data. Such a possibility could be particularly interesting
for single tree species plantations as it could enable substantial
reductions in the costs for field data acquisition.
The use of UAV photogrammetric data (i.e. UAV-SfM and UAV-
SfMDTM ) provided more accurate model predictions than LS data
(i.e. UAV-LS and ALS) for all biophysical parameters and the
largest RE for all variables butH. This highlights the advantages
of fine resolution UAV imagery that can capture both structural
information through SfM as well as the spectral and textural
properties of the forest canopy. The most precise estimates were
found when the SfM data were height normalized to a DTM
obtained from ALS data even though for H, we found indica-
tions of bias in the estimators. Giannetti et al. (2018) demon-
strated how UAV-SfM DTM-independent variables could be used
to model growing stock volume with similar accuracy to ALS data.
Our study confirmed the results by Giannetti et al. (2018) and
extended this approach to a broader range of inventory variables.
Interestingly, for estimating N and discarding the estimator using
UAV-LS because potentially biased, UAV-SfM data led to the most
precise estimates among the remaining alternatives. However,
when using UAV-SfM to estimate G and TSV for the entire forest
area, our results revealed that not only the RE was close to one
but that the estimators also indicated potential negative bias.
Thus, it appears that there is need to better understand how
well DTM-independent variables (i.e. UAV-SfM) perform beyond
assessing their model predictive accuracy. When compared to
UAV-SfMDTM , we found models using UAV-SfM to have reduced
Precision inventory of small-forest properties
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predictive accuracy, particularly for H, but also to a lesser extent
for all other variables including TSV. Given that UAV-SfM inven-
tories are not limited to areas where ALS DTMs are available,
further research should explore the use of this approach for the
estimation of biophysical parameters across a range of forest
types and stand conditions.
The use of UAV-LS was notable for producing the largest
RE for H and models that were nearly identical to the most
accurate model obtained from UAV-SfMDTM . This broadly agrees
with findings by Wallace et al. (2016) who showed UAV-LS to
be more accurate (RMSE = 0.92 m) than UAV-SfMDTM (RMSE =
1.30 m) for prediction of height. Results from this study extended
the comparison between these two UAV data sources to N, G
and TSV which, in contrast to H, showed larger RE for models
developed from UAV-SfMDTM than those developed from UAV-
LS data. The UAV-LS sensor used in this study was developed
primarily for automotive applications. Consequently, the laser
operates at less power and with larger beam divergence than
many survey-grade ALS scanners, which strongly restricts the
ability of the laser beam to penetrate through small canopy gaps.
Furthermore, the UAV-LS scanner used in this study only provided
a single return; a multi-return sensor may better characterize
the lower canopy improving the depiction of some biophysical
parameters. In terms of our results, the large precision found
for H estimates is, therefore, likely to be due to the increased
probability of resolving actual tree top heights because of the
very large point density. Further research should examine how
estimates made using UAV-SfMDTM compare to those from more
advanced survey-grade UAV-LS (e.g. Riegl VUX-1UAV), which offer
11
Forestry
both improved penetration, larger point densities and multiple
returns per pulse.
A unique characteristic of this study in regard to the UAV
literature is that we not only assessed the accuracy of the models
fitted using different combinations of biophysical variables and
remotely sensed data sources but also reported the uncertainty
and potential bias of the MB estimators. MB estimation has the
advantage that it does not require a probability sample from
the target area (Ståhl et al., 2016) and that MSE estimators are
not overly sensitive to geolocation mismatches between field
plots and the auxiliary data (Saarela et al., 2016b). It is therefore
important for further research to address the use of field and
UAV data external to the area of interest to capture the potential
benefits of MB inference.
In this study, tree height was estimated for unmeasured trees
based on the relationship between tree height and DBH in a sub-
sample of representative trees within each plot. This is standard
practice in many forest inventory systems but may introduce
some uncertainty into estimates of forest biophysical parameters
such as the total stem volume. The uncertainty introduced by
allometric model prediction in this manner is increasingly rec-
ognized and may have adverse effects on estimate precision.
A rigorous analysis of this additional uncertainty component
was beyond the scope of this paper, but as the same data and
predictive allometry was used for all estimators this should not
adversely affect the comparison presented.
Conclusion
This study demonstrated how UAV auxiliary data can effectively
support precision forestry practices for small-forest owners by
providing them with advanced data analytics otherwise available
only for large forest enterprises. Our results support the use of
MB estimation in small forest properties that are homogenous in
structure. UAV-SfMDTM data yielded some of the most precise esti-
mates out of the studied data sources and variables of interest,
highlighting the relevance of using UAV photogrammetric data
for estimation of key variables such as N, G and TSV.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the forest manager Jeff Tomble-
son for providing access to the study forest and for supporting our
research. Ben Morrow and Robin Hartley of Scion are acknowledged for
their contribution to UAV data collection.
Conflict of interest statement
None declared.
Funding
Forest Growers Levy Trust, AGMARDT; The New Zealand Farm
Forestry Association; the Neil Barr Foundation; Scion’s Strategic
Science Investment Funding within the ‘Improving
Small-Plantation and Woodlot Inventory’ project; Norwegian
Institute for Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO).
12
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