Satellites and lidar get AI boost to count forest carbon stock worldwide

Satellite data have long told us where forests are and how they’re faring. Lidar, laser-based radar mounted on planes or satellites like the International Space Station, has helped us map forests in 3D. A newly launched tool has now thrown artificial intelligence into the mix. Earth-imaging company Planet has combined data from its vast constellation of satellites with globally available lidar data to build an AI-powered tool that can estimate where and how carbon is stored in remote and inaccessible forests around the world. In quarterly data sets that have a resolution as fine as 3 meters (10 feet), the Forest Carbon Monitoring tool estimates aboveground carbon, tree height, and canopy cover of forests. “It will help us understand aspects of the forest that might not be initially accessible to the naked eye,” Andrew Zolli, chief impact officer at Planet, told Mongabay in a video interview. While satellite images have helped scientists, conservationists and enforcement agencies track how forest cover changes over time, they can’t tell how much carbon a forest stores. Understanding that requires mapping the forest in 3D and measuring aboveground biomass. Lidar sensors that emit laser beams have long played an important role in calculating this. Scientists observe the time it takes for the light to reflect off trees, leaves and branches, and use that to calculate the dimensions of trees. Lidar data, especially from NASA’s GEDI mission that’s deployed on the ISS and maps forests from space, have been crucial to understanding forest biomass in the…This article was originally published on Mongabay