Towards Scaling-Up Three-Dimensional Habitat Structural Measurements with Multi-Sensor Remote Sensing

Abstract

Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) captures fine-scaled three-dimensional measurements of ecosystem structure, supporting monitoring of the Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs). Yet employing TLS across landscapes remains challenging in remote and topographically complex areas. Remote sensing provides a potential pathway for upscaling TLS-derived structural metrics, but to what extent is unquantified particularly in heterogenous environments, like oceanic islands. Here, we investigated the ability of remote sensing to estimate TLS-derived habitat structure across three contrasting habitats (lowland rainforest, montane cloud forest, and subalpine summit scrub) on La Reunion island. Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, and Aerial LiDAR (ALS) data were acquired over plots where TLS was completed. We derived defined indices of backscatter coefficients, vegetation indices, and LiDAR metrics and assessed their alignment with TLS measurements using a Procrustes analysis. Subsequently, we used General Additive Models to estimate TLS habitat structure from remote sensing variables. Sentinel-2 exhibited the highest multivariate alignment with TLS (r = 0.51). TLS measurements of horizontal and vertical structure were estimated with the highest cross-validated predictive accuracy (R2 0.39 - 0.73), whilst structural complexity metrics were estimated with greater difficulty (R2 0.02 - 0.20). Multi-sensor models outperformed all single-sensor models in prediction estimates. Model performance also varied across habitats, with the highest agreement between predicted and observed values in the lowland rainforest (r = 0.38), and the lowest agreement (r = 0.35) in the montane cloud forest. Yet the dominant structural feature of each habitat was most accurately captured with remote sensing. Our results demonstrate the potential of integrating multi-sensor remote sensing data to upscale key dimensions of TLS-derived ecosystem structure but remains challenging for fine-scale structural complexity. These findings highlight both the potential and constraints of remote sensing for developing scalable, long-term monitoring frameworks for EBVs, especially in structurally complex and underrepresented island ecosystems.