Waveform lidar data analysis for detecting vegetation structure and coastal morphology.Analisi di dati lidar waveform sulla struttura della vegetazione e sulla morfologia costiera.

This paper reports the results of a comparative analysis between airborne discrete return lidar and satellite waveform lidar. Morphological and vegetation indices extracted from the two types of lidar have been analyzed to assess correlation, considering the discrete return lidar as reference because of its higher resolution. For each waveform lidar spot three circular areas with increasing diameter have been considered to assess the influence of distance from baricenter on correlation. Statistical analysis using Pearson’s correlation coefficient with 95% confidence interval shows that there are significant linear relationships (correlation higher than 0.5) between certain indices calculated from discrete lidar and from waveform lidar. These results permit to consider waveform lidar as a valid resource of information on morphology and vegetation.