R: Leaf area density

LAD {lidR} | R Documentation

## Leaf area density

### Description

Computes a leaf area density profile based on the method of Bouvier et al. (see reference)

### Usage

    LAD(z, dz = 1, k = 0.5, z0 = 2)

### Arguments

`z` | vector of positive z coordinates
`dz` | numeric. The thickness of the layers used (height bin)
`k` | numeric. is the extinction coefficient
`z0` | numeric. The bottom limit of the profile

### Details

The function assesses the number of laser points that actually reached the layer z+dz and those that passed through the layer [z, z+dz] (see gap_fraction_profile). Then it computes the log of this quantity and divides it by the extinction coefficient k as described in Bouvier et al. By definition the layer 0 will always return infinity because no returns pass through the ground. Therefore, the layer 0 is removed from the returned results.

### Value

A data.frame containing the bin elevations (z) and leaf area density for each bin (lad)

### References

Bouvier, M., Durrieu, S., Fournier, R. a, & Renaud, J. (2015). Generalizing predictive models of forest inventory attributes using an area-based approach with airborne las data. Remote Sensing of Environment, 156, 322-334. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2014.10.004

### See Also

gap_fraction_profile

### Examples

    z <- c(rnorm(1e4, 25, 6), rgamma(1e3, 1, 8)*6, rgamma(5e2, 5,5)*10)
    z <- z[z<45 & z>0]

    lad <- LAD(z)

    plot(lad, type="l", xlab="Elevation", ylab="Leaf area density")

[Package lidR version 3.2.2 Index]