Due to their particular topographic position between land and river, riparian forests are ecosystems rich in biodiversity. In France, along the Middle Loire (from Nevers to Angers), Black poplar (Populus nigra L.) forests are often in mixtures with the American maple (Acer negundo L.), introduced into the country in the 18th century. We tested the detectability of American maple by LiDAR and very high-resolution multispectral imagery on an island complex. We found that coupling the point cloud height standard deviation with a vegetation index in the red, green and blue spectrums discriminated American maple with a success rate of more than 90%.