Leaf area index (LAI) characterizes the amount of photosynthetically active tissue in plant canopies. LAI is one of the key factors determining ecosystem net primary production and gas and energy exchange between the canopy and the atmosphere. The aim of the present study was to test different methods for LAI and effective plant area index (PAIe) estimation in mixed hemiboreal forests in Järvselja SMEAR Estonia (Station for Measuring Ecosystem-Atmosphere Relations) flux tower footprint. We used digital hemispherical images from sample plots, forest management inventory data, allometric foliage mass models, airborne discrete-return recording laser scanner (ALS) data and multispectral satellite images. The free ware program HemiSpherical Project Manager (HSP) was used to calculate canopy gap fraction from digital hemispherical photographs taken in 25 sample plots. PAIe was calculated from the gap fraction for up-scaling based on ALS point cloud metrics. The all ALS pulse returns-based canopy transmission was found to be the most suitable lidar metric to estimate PAIe in Järvselja forests. The 95-percentile (