Long Term Soil Productivity

SGRC Lead Researcher: Frank Zhang
SGRC Researcher: Justin Robinson
Ministry Researcher: Mike Curran

Collaborating Agencies: BC Ministry of Forests

Funders: BC Ministry of Forests

BC Ministry of Forests is part of the Long Term Soil Productivity (LTSP) network in North America. The goal is to monitor the tree growth in term of responding to the different soil treatments.

The objective of this study is using high spatial resolution imagery to quantify the effects of the soil disturbance on the soil productivity. In this study, very high spatial resolution multi-spectral imagery is investigated for its value and potential in soil treatment study. Individual tree height and DBH were retrieved from the imagery and was used to estimate the biomass, which is a direct indicator of ground soil treatment. We found the very high spatial resolution imagery can provide precise information of tree geometry, e.g., tree height and tree crown size. However, the correlations between these parameters and tree biomass are not stable. This significantly impacts the derivation of the correlation between imagery measurable parameters and the treatment effects. We found using annual growth differences would be a much better indicator to reflect the soil treatment impact.