LadderFuelsR - Automated Tool for Vertical Fuel Continuity Analysis using Airborne Laser Scanning Data

Set of tools for analyzing vertical fuel continuity at the tree level using Airborne Laser Scanning data. The workflow consisted of: 1) calculating the vertical height profiles of each segmented tree; 2) identifying gaps and fuel layers; 3) estimating the distance between fuel layers; and 4) retrieving the fuel layers base height and depth. Additionally, other functions recalculate previous metrics after considering distances greater than certain threshold. Moreover, the package calculates: i) the percentage of Leaf Area Density comprised in each fuel layer, ii) remove fuel layers with Leaf Area Density (LAD) percentage less than 10, and iii) recalculate the distances among the reminder ones. On the other hand, it identifies the crown base height (CBH) based on different criteria: the fuel layer with the highest LAD percentage and the fuel layers located at the largest- and at the last-distance. When there is only one fuel layer, it also identifies the CBH performing a segmented linear regression (breaking points) on the cumulative sum of LAD as a function of height. Finally, a collection of plotting functions is developed to represent: i) the initial gaps and fuel layers; ii) the fuels base height, depths and gaps with distances greater than certain threshold and, iii) the CBH based on different criteria. The methods implemented in this package are original and have not been published elsewhere.