A forest’s structure records its past and enables predictions about its future

Van R. Kane

Education

Ph.D., Ecosystem Analysis, University of Washington, 2010

NASA Earth and Space Science Graduate Fellowship (Grant NNX07AN75H)  2007 – 2010 

B.A. General Arts and Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, 1977

 

I am a research associate at the College of Environment studying patterns of forest structure using remote sensing, especially airborne LiDAR.  My work focuses on applied studies such as measuring forest fuels, studying large areas of forests to elucidate forest processes and resulting patterns, and developing new methods to relate LiDAR data to field and satellite forests measurements.  My current work involves studying forest structure across a range of forest types including the Pacific Northwest and California  scales ranging from 25 to 95,000 hectares.

 

My graduate research was funded through a NASA graduate fellowship and used LiDAR measurements of forest canopy structure to calibrate and evaluate ASTER and Landsat remote sensing of forest structure. I also used LiDAR to classify forests at multiple scales based on the structural complexity of their canopies. I have been a contractor for the City of Seattle and The Nature Conservancy to map forest structure in two large reserves using LiDAR data. 

Individual tree identification,  Yosemite National Park.

Current Sponsored Projects

 

Map Fuel Characteristics at Mount Rainier National Park, WA, Using LiDAR and Field Data

LiDAR data offers the opportunity to map forest fuel characteristics across large forests.  This study will develop methods to correlate field fuel measures with LiDAR canopy measurements to produce a fuels map across the heterogeneous forests of Mt. Rainier National Park.

Collaborators: Regina Rochefort, Karen Kopper

Sponsor: National Park Service

 

Refine fire management objectives related to forest structural heterogeneity in Yosemite National Park, CA

As fires burn heterogeneously across a landscape with mixed vegetation types, variability in vegetation and fire behavior create a mosaic of burn severity patches.  These patches vary in size and shape and the amount of post-fire change in the vegetation structure. 

Collaborators: Susan Roberts, Gus Smith, James Lutz

Sponsor: National Park Service

 

Using LiDAR to Determine the Relationship between Fire History and Forest Structure at Crater Lake National Park

The goal of this collaborative project is to use LiDAR data to understand how time-since-fire (TSF) and fire severity controls patterns of forest structure development across elevation and compositional gradients.  Our specific objectives are to: (1) determine how post-fire development of forest structure varies along gradients of elevation, fire severity, and TSF by directly mapping stand development stage, canopy height, height to live crown, canopy vertical structure, basal area, and gap and patch size; (2) compare forest and patch structures created by contemporary wildland fires with pre-20th century fires; and (3) develop park-wide atlases of fire severity measurements and forest structural attributes. 

Collaborators: Calvin Farris, James Lutz

Sponsor: National Park Service

 

Integrated, observation-based carbon monitoring for wooded ecosystems in Washington, Oregon, and California

Predicting the fate of carbon in wooded ecosystems under future climates is a fundamental scientific and management challenge, as these systems contain large reservoirs of carbon,  provide many essential ecosystem services, and represent a potentially critical feedback in global climate change.  Yet carbon storage is highly dynamic and affected by diverse anthropogenic and natural processes that can radically change the carbon trajectory of a landscape.  This project will map changes in carbon storage in wooded ecosystems across these three states.  My contribution will calibrate the regional Landsat measurements with field and LiDAR-measurements of carbon at the watershed to regional scales.  Study website.

Collaborators: James Lutz, Robert Kennedy, Janet Ohmann, Warren Cohen, Jerry Franklin,  and Scott Powell

Sponsors: U.S. Department of Agriculture and NASA

 

Methods to Improve Predictions of Forest Conditions Using Airborne LiDAR Data

The project will involve a number of tasks in cooperation with the USDA Forest Service Northwest Research Station to develop and improve methods to measure and predict forest conditions using airborne LiDAR data.

Collaborator: Robert McGaughey

Sponsor: USDA Forest Service Northwest Research Station

 

Completed Projects

 

Gap and Patch Structure of Pacific Northwest Forests

The development of gaps and regrowth patches is a key process to developing structures characteristic of old-growth forests.  This work quantifies gap and patch structure across a range of forest ages, relates the observed patterns to theories of forest development, and examines whether the patterns observed can be used to refine remote sensing methods to classify forests.

Collaborators: Rolf Gersonde, James Lutz

Sponsor: NASA (completion of work begun under NASA Graduate Fellowship)

 

Peer-reviewed Publications

Kane, V.R., Gersonde, R., Lutz, J.A., McGaughey, R.E., Bakker, J.D., and Franklin, J.F. Accepted. Patch Dynamics and the Development of Structural and Spatial Heterogeneity in Pacific Northwest Forests. Canadian Journal of Forest Research.  41: (12) 2276-2291.

Kane, V.R., Bakker, J.D., McGaughey, R.E., Lutz, J.A., Gersonde, R., and Franklin, J.F. 2010.  Examining conifer canopy structural complexity across forest ages and elevations with LiDAR data. Canadian Journal of Forest Research.  40: 774–787.

Kane, V.R., McGaughey, R.E., Bakker, J.D., Gersonde, R., Lutz, J.A., and Franklin, J.F. 2010. Comparisons between field- and LiDAR-based measures of stand structural complexity.  Canadian Journal of Forest Research.  40: 761–773.

Lutz, J.A., Freund, J.A., Hagmann, R.K., Kane, V.R., Larson, A.J., and Franklin, J.F. 2008. Mid-career graduate students in ecology. Frontiers in Ecology and Environment. 6(7): 394-395.

Kane, V.R., Gillespie, A.R., McGaughey, R., Lutz, J.A., Ceder, K., and Franklin, J.F. 2008. Interpretation and topographic compensation of conifer canopy self-shadowing. Remote Sensing of Environment .112(10): 3820-3832.

Gillespie, A. R., Gilson, L., Gillespie, M. A., & Kane, V. R. (2006). A framework for estimating unresolved spectral shade. In J. A. Sobrino (Ed.), Second recent advances in quantitative remote sensing (pp. 385−390). Spain: Publicacions de la Universitat de València.

Reports

Kane, V.R. 2008. Ellworth Creek LiDAR analysis final report. Report to The Nature Conservancy of Washington State.

Kane, V.R. 2008. Canopy structure at Ellsworth Creek study sites and experimental basins. Report to The Nature Conservancy of Washington State.

Kane, V.R. 2008. Methods used to produce LiDAR metrics of Ellsworth Creek forest canopies. Report to the City of Seattle Public Utilities Division.

Kane, V.R. 2008. Methods used to produce LiDAR metrics of Cedar River Watershed forest canopies. Report to The Nature Conservancy of Washington State.

Conferences

Using LiDAR to monitor effects of forest restoration: An example from The Nature Conservancy’s Ellsworth Creek Project.  2011. 8^th North American Forest Ecology Workshop. Roanoke, Virginia. Davis, L.R., and Kane, V.R. (oral presentation)

Using LIDAR for MULTI-Scaled assessments of forest structure. 2009. 94^th ESA Annual Meeting.  Kane, V.R., McGaughey, R.E., Gersonde, R., Lutz, J.A., Bakker, J.D., and Franklin, J.F. (oral presentation).

Calibrating Landsat/ASTER with LiDAR for Forest Studies. 2009 NASA Biodiversity and Ecological Forecasting Team Meeting.  Kane, V.R. (oral presentation)

Characterizing Forest Structural Complexity at Multiple Scales, Northwest Scientific Association 2009 Annual Conference.  Kane, V.R., McGaughey, R.E., Gersonde, R., Lutz, J.A., Bakker, J.D., and Franklin, J.F. (oral presentation).

Using LiDAR metrics to characterize forests structural complexity at multiple scales. 2007 American Geophysical Union Conference. Kane, V.R., McGaughey, R.E., Gersonde, R., and Franklin, J.F. (oral presentation).

Spectral unmixing of remotely sensed forest images using an adaptive topographic shade correction algorithm. 2006 American Geophysical Union Conference.  Kane, V.R., Gillespie, A.R., Ceder, K, and Lutz, J. (poster)

Mapping the geography of conservation solutions. 2006 Society for Conservation Biology Annual Meeting. Kane, V.R. and Hoekstra, J. (oral presentation).

Peer Reviewer for Landscape Ecology, Remote Sensing of Environment, Environmental Management, International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, New Zealand Journal of Forest Science, Forest Systems, and Sensors

 

Neotropical forest examined with LiDAR data, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Barro Colorado Island, Panama

College of the Environment

University of Washington

Box 352100

Seattle, WA 98195-2100

 

Bloedel 386 (Campus map)

Telephone: 206-543-4713

E-mail: vkane@u.washington.edu