Global Canopy Top Height Models at 10m Resolution from Airborne LIDAR

Rasterized canopy top height models at 10m ground sampling distance derived from airborne LIDAR. The data was created by Nico Lang of ETH Zurich to be comparable to GEDI satellite canopy heights, using NASA's LVIS campaigns and European small-footprint ALS data. More details are available in the associated Nature Ecology & Evolution paper from 2023.

Use Cases

• Validate and calibrate GEDI satellite canopy height measurements based on the derived, comparable airborne data.
• Model forest biomass and carbon stocks based on canopy top height.
• Analyze forest structure and change over time based on high-resolution canopy height models.
• Train machine learning models for global canopy height prediction based on the methodology described.

Strengths

• Models are processed to be directly comparable to GEDI satellite data within 25m footprints.
• Derived from two authoritative LIDAR sources: NASA's LVIS campaigns and high-resolution European ALS data.
• Associated with a peer-reviewed publication in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Row count and specific file formats are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Derived from NASA LVIS LIDAR and European small-footprint airborne laser scanning campaigns.

Collection Method

Rasterization of LIDAR-derived canopy height metrics, with max pooling to match GEDI footprint size.

Geography

Global, with specific coverage from LVIS campaigns and European ALS data.