CA Lidar Tree Mortality: 1.8+ Million Trees in Sierra Nevada, 2009-2016

1.8+ million individual tree crown mortality records were generated from LiDAR data using the lidR algorithm. The data were created by Atticus Stovall for a study on tree height and mortality during extreme drought. The study area is the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, and the data cover the period from 2009 to 2016.

Use Cases

• Modeling tree mortality risk based on tree height and other LiDAR-derived features.
• Analyzing spatial patterns of forest die-off during drought events.
• Validating remote sensing algorithms for individual tree detection and health assessment.

Strengths

• Data covers over 1.8 million individual trees, providing a large sample for analysis.
• Records span 7 years (2009-2016), capturing mortality over time.
• Data are derived from LiDAR, which provides precise 3D structural information.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Atticus Stovall

Collection Method

Product of a LiDAR-based tree detection algorithm (lidR).

Time Range

2009-2016

Geography

Sierra Nevada mountains, California, USA