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

This dataset comprises of the results of habitat structural characterisation from terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), conducted using a FARO Focus M70 terrestrial laser scanner (Faro Technologies Inc., Lake Mary, USA) in 55 plots, across three habitats in La Réunion, France. A published algorithm (https://github.com/ehbrechtetal/Stand-structural-complexity-index---SSCI.git) was used to calculate the Stand Structural Complexity Index (SSCI), developed by Ehbrecht et al. (2017), derived from the Mean Fractal index (MeanFRAC) and the Effective Number of Layers (ENL). Other structural metrics such as canopy openness, canopy height, and an Understorey Complexity Index (UCI) were calculated. Aerial LiDAR from the IGN, France, 2025 were acquired to produce aerial lidar metrics. Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellite imagery were acquired from Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem (Kovács et al., 2026) to produce backscatter coefficients and reflectance data for the plots. The resulting computations are found in the associated "habitat_remotesensing_metrics.csv" file. Due to data deposit limitations, the processed scans (as .xyz files) are not deposited but are available on request. NB: Samantha Suter and Sarah Kabache ([e-mail]) are the data owners for this dataset. Recommended citation for this dataset: Suter, S., Ah-Peng, C., Kabache, S., Seidel, D., Strasberg, D., and Zemp, D.C., 2026. Towards Scaling-Up Three-Dimensional Habitat Structural Measurements with Multi-Sensor Remote Sensing. Dataset (V.1). Zenodo.10.5281/zenodo.19627146