• Guay, Anthony Paul
  University of Maine
  

Quantitative estimates of biophysical properties of young conifer forests are important to foresters, forest ecologists, silviculturists, and wildlife ecologists. These estimates are necessary for forest inventory programs, wood supply analyses, and modeling ecosystem processes. Traditionally, this information has been gathered using aerial photo interpretation and field regeneration surveys; however, these methods are costly and labor intensive. Reflectance data from earth-observing satellites might provide a more cost effective and objective approach to obtaining estimates of forest biophysical properties. This study explored the relations between stand age, stocking, and density of regenerating conifers and calibrated Landsat Thematic Mapper reflectance data, and modeled these biophysical properties of young conifer stands using regression analysis.