A UAV-Lidar system to map Amazonian rainforest and its ancient landscape transformations

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis via the DOI in this record.In this paper a robust unmanned aerial remote sensing system, equipped with a survey-grade Lidar scanner and a multispectral camera system, assembled to study pre-Columbian Amazonian archaeology is presented. The data collected from this sys- tem will be utilised in a novel inter-disciplinary way by combining these data with in- situ data collected by archaeologists, archaebotanists, paleoecologists, soil scientists, and landscape ecologists to study the nature and scale of the impact of pre-Columbian humans in transforming the landscapes of Amazonian rainforest. The outputs of this research will also inform future policy on the conservation, sustainability, and ecological state of the forest.The authors would like to thank European Research Council (ERC) for funding this research under the ERC Consolidator grant titled, Pre-Columbian Amazon Scale Transformations, and also express their gratitude to the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), the US Forest Service, USAID, and the US Department of State for providing additional data