Correcting for nondetection in estimating forest characteristics from single-scan terrestrial laser measurements

A problem in the single-scan setup of terrestrial laser scanning is that some trees are shaded by others and therefore not detected in the scan. A basic estimator for forest characteristics such as the tree density or basal area is based on the visible area of a scanner. However, simply compensating for nondetection by the visible area may result in considerable bias even in Poisson forests, especially if the detection of a tree depends on its size. We propose a new estimator that is a generalization of the visible area based estimator. Most importantly the new estimator allows different detection rules, for example full or partial visibility of a tree can be required for detection. By a simulation study, it is shown to work adequately in different types of simulated and empirical forests with different detection rules.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author