Lidar for Geohazard and Natural Resource Characterization

Lidar (Light detection and ranging) emerged during the 1990s for commercial and civil use and provides representation of bare earth surface, vegetation, and ice coverage as well as coastal bathymetry at an unprecedented resolution and within a fraction of the acquisition time required by past surveying methods. The combination of high resolution and short acquisition time has opened new avenues into investigating the Earth’s surface, not only providing quantification of its three-dimensional shape but also of its temporal changes. This chapter provides an overview of the technical aspects of Lidar with a focus on airborne-Lidar systems and data acquisition and its potential for assessing or quantifying natural resources and hazards. Additional resources can be found for instance in Vosselman and Maas (Airborne and terrestrial laser scanning. CRC Press, Boca Raton, 2010), NOAA (Lidar 101: an introduction to Lidar technology, data, and applications. Revised. NOAA Coastal Services Center, Charleston, 2012), and Glennie et al. (Rep Prog Phys 76:086801, 2013).