Characterizing Canopy Openness in Open Forests: Spherical Densiometer and Canopy Photography Are Equivalent but Less Sensitive than Direct Measurements of Solar Radiation
In forest ecosystems, canopy openness affects understory light availability, plant growth, and tree species recruitment, thus shaping future forest composition, structure, and functional diversity. Foresters must correctly and quickly measure canopy openness to meet their management objectives. To help guide the selection of an appropriate method for measuring canopy openness, we compared three common techniques that vary in cost, complexity, and time required for measurements and data processing: smartphone-based hemispherical photography, spherical densiometer measurements, and direct measurements of solar radiation (using AccuPAR ceptometer). We measured canopy openness using these three methods on 28 permanent forest health monitoring plots in pine-oak forests of the Central Pine Barrens of Long Island in New York State. By analysis of variance and regression analyses, we found the three methods (particularly densiometer and hemispherical photographs) yielded broadly equivalent and strongly positively correlated descriptions of canopy openness. The direct measurements of solar radiation seemed to have a greater potential to detect subtle variation in forest understory light. Forest managers may sufficiently characterize canopy openness using quick and cheap methods (e.g., spherical densiometers) and avoid larger costs of devices for direct light measurements (e.g., ceptometers) and the larger data processing times of hemispherical photography.
- Research Organization:
- Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Solar Energy Technologies Office (EE-4S)
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0012704
- OSTI ID:
- 1797370
- Report Number(s):
- BNL-221669-2021-JARP
- Journal Information:
- JOURNAL OF FORESTRY, Journal Name: JOURNAL OF FORESTRY Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 119; ISSN 0022-1201
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
A manual for analysis of hemispherical canopy photography
Canopy photography for assessment of local light environment of tropical forest trees and palms
Assessing Forest Level Response to the Death of a Dominant Tree within a Premontane Tropical Rainforest
Technical Report
·
Thu Nov 30 23:00:00 EST 1989
·
OSTI ID:7064866
Canopy photography for assessment of local light environment of tropical forest trees and palms
Conference
·
Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 1987
· Bull. Ecol. Soc. Am.; (United States)
·
OSTI ID:6107616
Assessing Forest Level Response to the Death of a Dominant Tree within a Premontane Tropical Rainforest
Journal Article
·
Wed Aug 04 20:00:00 EDT 2021
· Forests
·
OSTI ID:1851412