激光雷达作为一种主动的三维遥感观测技术，在不同尺度的土地、矿产、森林、草原、湿地、水、海洋等自然资源的三维动态监测中发挥着越来越重要的作用。本文将在简要介绍激光雷达技术发展现状的基础上，重点阐述激光雷达技术在各类自然资源三维动态监测中的应用现状，同时对激光雷达在自然资源调查中的应用潜力和局限性进行综合分析，最后探讨以激光雷达技术为基础的自然资源三维动态监测的未来发展趋势和方向。随着激光雷达技术和平台的不断发展以及激光雷达信息的深入挖掘，将不断促进激光雷达技术在自然资源三维动态监测应用中的纵深发展。然而单一激光雷达数据由于其本身存在的局限性，难以满足自然资源全要素、全流程、全覆盖、高精度、高效率的现代化动态监测的要求，如何将多源、多尺度、多平台遥感数据与人工智能相结合，构建“天—空—地”一体化的自然资源调查监测技术体系，是未来自然资源三维动态监测的发展方向。

Natural resources, as the necessary conditions for human survival and development, play an important role of driving force and main support for achieving high-quality and sustainable economic development, and are also the fundamental carrier for building a beautiful China and deepening the system reform of ecological civilization. Thus it is of great significance for human survival and development to achieve the high-precision and high-efficiency investigation, evaluation and monitoring of various natural resources. As an active three-dimensional remote sensing observation technology, Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) is playing an increasingly important role in the three-dimensional dynamic monitoring of multi-scale natural resources, such as land, mineral, forest, grassland, wetland, water, and ocean resources. To better understand the development and application situation of LiDAR in the three-dimensional dynamic monitoring of multi-scale natural resources, in this paper we first briefly introduced the current development status of LiDAR technology, including the review of technological development history of LiDAR and the brief elaboration of different LiDAR platforms (e.g. spaceborne LiDAR systems, airborne LiDAR systems, terrestrial LiDAR systems, etc) and their components. Then we reviewed respectively the application of LiDAR technology in three-dimensional dynamic monitoring of land, mineral, forest, grassland, wetland, water as well as ocean resources, and preliminarily analyzed the potentials and limitations of different LiDAR platforms in the three-dimensional dynamic monitoring of multi-scale natural resources. Based on the above review, we then comprehensively analyzed the potentials and limitations of applying LiDAR in natural resource surveys. The analysis showed that it is no doubt that the LiDAR technology will show the enormous advantages and potential in the three-dimensional dynamic monitoring of multi-scale natural resources in the future, as the fast development of the single photon LiDAR, multispectral LiDAR, hyperspectral LiDAR as well as Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) LiDAR platform. Certainly, LiDAR technology also demonstrated some limitations in natural resource surveys, which were mainly embodied in the following four aspects: (1) it was difficult for LiDAR technology to provide rich spectral information of natural resource; (2) A wide range of the all-weather and full-coverage LiDAR data normally was inaccessible; (3) The full three-dimensional information of natural resource was hard to be generated from a single LiDAR platform; (4) The data processing and information extraction algorithms of LiDAR were not yet systematic and prefect. Finally, we discussed the future development trend and direction of the three-dimensional dynamic monitoring of natural resources based on LiDAR technology. It is believed that the continuous development in LiDAR hardware and software platforms will continue to promote the in-depth mining of LiDAR data in the applications of three-dimensional dynamic monitoring of natural resources. However, current LiDAR technology still cannot meet the requirements of full-element, full-processes, full-coverage, high-precision and high-efficiency monitoring of natural resources, owing to its shortcoming of lack of spectral information, full three-dimensional information as well as all-weather and full-coverage data. Therefore, how to fuse multi-source, multi-scale, and multi-platform remote sensing data by taking advantages of artificial intelligence to build an integrated natural resource monitoring system is the future direction of three-dimensional dynamic monitoring of natural resources.