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Measuring Forest Structure from Space
Traditional satellite imagery offers valuable information about land cover, but understanding the three-dimensional structure of forests has long been more challenging.
The launch of missions such as GEDI and ICESat-2 has changed this by allowing scientists to directly measure forest canopy height from space. Recent research continues to demonstrate how these datasets are improving our ability to map forest structure and estimate biomass. [tandfonline.com], [mdpi.com]
Why Height Matters
Canopy height is one of the most important indicators of:
- Forest health
- Carbon storage
- Habitat quality
- Ecosystem productivity
Recent studies combining ICESat-2 and GEDI observations with optical and radar imagery have produced increasingly detailed forest-height products at regional scales. [mdpi.com], [tandfonline.com]
The Rise of Multi-Sensor Forest Mapping
Researchers are now integrating:
- GEDI LiDAR
- ICESat-2 LiDAR
- Landsat
- Sentinel imagery
- SAR observations
to create wall-to-wall forest structure maps that support conservation and climate applications. [ieeexplore.ieee.org], [mdpi.com], [tandfonline.com]
Why This Matters for RSPSoc Members
Spaceborne LiDAR demonstrates how Earth Observation is evolving from mapping surfaces to measuring ecosystem structure in three dimensions. This represents one of the most important developments in environmental remote sensing during the last decade. [spj.science.org], [tandfonline.com]