Realistic virtual forests for understanding forest disturbances and recovery from space
Forests worldwide are undergoing large-scale and unprecedented changes in terms of structure and composition due to land use change and natural disturbances. We have some understanding of how disturbances impact forest structure. Still, we lack knowledge of the structural impact at fine spatial and temporal resolution, as well as across large spatial extents. Here, we provide a perspective on new approaches to observe, quantify and understand forest disturbances and recovery from space by using time series of the most detailed 3D virtual forest models that aim to digitise real-life forests fully. These virtual forests are important for enhancing our fundamental understanding of how we observe forest disturbance and recovery monitoring from space. We define virtual forests in the context of this paper as explicit 3D reconstructed models that are parameterised so they can be used and manipulated for radiative transfer modelling. Realistic virtual forests can be created through empirical reconstruction of explicit forest structure measured by terrestrial laser scanning, coupled with radiometric parameterisation. We argue that these realistic virtual forests, capturing the temporal dimension of forest disturbances, combined with physically-based radiative transfer modelling, provide a critical link between detailed in situ observations and large spatial coverage from satellite observations.
Authors
- Pieter De Frenne (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8613-0943)
- Louise Terryn (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8405-2788)
- Kim Calders (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4562-2538)
- John Armston (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1232-3424)
- Mathias Disney (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2407-4026)
- Jennifer Adams (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8410-2172)
- Mikko Vastaranta (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6552-9122)
- Patrick Meir (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2362-0398)
- Martin Herold (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0246-6886)
- Wouter A.J. Van den Broeck (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2817-9658)
- Niall Origo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8475-6264)
- Cornelius Senf (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2389-2158)
- Benjamin Brede (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9253-4517)
- Hans Verbeeck (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1490-0168)
- Shaun R. Levick (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4437-9174)
- Wout Cherlet (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3505-6971)
- Ludovic Villard
- Karun Dayal
- Zane Cooper (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-6550-4529)
- Luna Soenens (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-3270-1199)
Institutions
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (AU)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- National Physical Laboratory (GB)
- Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (FR)
- University of Eastern Finland (FI)
- Université Fédérale de Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées (FR)
- ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences (CH)
- University of Zurich (CH)
- Ghent University (BE)
- National Centre for Earth Observation (GB)
- GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences (DE)
- Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (FR)
- University College London (GB)
- Technical University of Munich (DE)
- University of Maryland, College Park (US)
- University of Edinburgh (GB)
Publication Details
- Journal
- ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
- Published
- 2025-06-27
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2025.06.031
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Remote Sensing and LiDAR Applications
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.60
Funders
- European Space Agency
- European Commission
- Endocrine Society of Australia
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Academy of Finland
- Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
- Horizon 2020 Framework Programme
- European Research Council
- HORIZON EUROPE European Research Council