Remote Sensing and LiDAR Applications

LiDAR remote sensing uses pulses of laser light to measure the three-dimensional structure of forests with centimeter-scale precision, enabling researchers to estimate tree height, canopy density, aboveground biomass, and carbon stocks across landscapes that would be impractical to survey on foot. Because forests store roughly half of terrestrial carbon, accurate and repeatable measurements of that storage are essential for climate modeling, national carbon accounting, and monitoring the effects of deforestation or restoration. Airborne laser scanning can cover millions of hectares in a single campaign, while terrestrial systems capture fine-grained detail at the stand level, and a central challenge in the field is harmonizing these scales into consistent, globally applicable biomass maps. Active research directions include integrating LiDAR data with satellite imagery and machine learning to reduce uncertainty in biomass estimates across tropical forests, where carbon density is highest and ground-truth data remain sparse.

Works

108,688

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1,015,663

Keywords

Lidar Remote SensingForest Carbon StocksAboveground BiomassTree Height EstimationGlobal Forest MappingAirborne Laser Scanning