Airborne laser scanning data for snow covered biomass estimation

Airborne laser scanning provides reliable terrain data in terms of 3D coordinates. High resolutions Digital Terrain Models (DTM) are in use for many applications, including change detection of surfaces. Also the estimation of the snow depth by making use of Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) data acquired in summer and winter is a subject of current investigations. However estimating snow depth seems problematic in vegetation covered areas. This work focuses on the investigation of the snow depth estimation using snow covered vegetation effect. In this aspect a method based on segmentation filter is proposed for snow depth calculation in vegetation covered area by using ALS data. The method demonstrates the performance of the segmentation filter with respect to the adaptability on the vegetated snow covered area. Additionally the influence of the snow covered biomass on the snow depth model is also investigated.