Maryland Canopy Height Map

[Darian Copiz]

NTS,

Partly inspired by George Fieo's spectacular finds at Fair Hill, I started looking further into other potential tall tree sites in Maryland. Of course one of the best ways to do this is with LIDAR, but I was very apprehensive about looking for data sets, piecing them together, and processing the data. I was hoping that maybe someone out there had already done some of this, and had actually been hoping this for some time. Maryland has some great online mapping resources. Maybe DNR or another organization would have tree canopies. I had searched for it before, but hadn't come across anything. This time though, I hit the jackpot. Coming from my alma mater, here it is: http://carbonmonitoring.umd.edu/map.html

The canopy height layer goes up to 50 meters. The quality varies a bit from county to county, but overall looks good. According to the website, eventually they will also be making the files available - which would be very helpful, as then a query could just be done to locate all areas with canopies over a certain height. In the meantime, I have been visually scanning and clicking on different areas of the map to find tall tree sites. Based on previous experience, online resources don't always stay around forever, so I have been mapping promising sites on a personal Google map. If anyone would like access to this map, let me know and I can send a link.

So far I have checked out a couple sites and the map appears to be a good resource for locating tall tree sites. However, the field measurements fall short of map measurements - which seems to be typical enough for LIDAR data. Although the map indicated tree heights in excess of 49 meters, so far my tallest measurements have been just shy of 160 feet - which still isn't shabby. I will post reports on the sites I have measured soon, but they aren't Fair Hills. I don't think I even got a full Rucker Index for them. They were still of some interest though.

Darian

[dbhguru]

Darian,

We look forward to your reports. Thanks for coming back into the fold.

Bob

[George Fieo]

Darian,

I am looking/waiting anxiously for your reports. The mapping u have shared is the kind of data we as NTSers value. I have documented several of the sites I've seen on the map and would have to say it underscored some sites but also warrants further investigation for others. County's I've documented for Maryland include Cecil, Harford, and Baltimore County's. I've not yet reported on. Several new height records. If you would like we could hook up for some new excursions. Perhaps with our newest member Pat.

George